Re: Non-uniqueness of module names

[Sean Conner <sean@...>]

It was thus said that the Great Tim Hill once stated:
> > On Apr 12, 2019, at 6:50 AM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > The Lua ecosystem will never be worth that name as long as there is no
> > way to address the module naming issue.
> 
> +1 .. imho this is one of the weaker aspects of Lua. While I realize Lua
> +is primarily an embedded language (and I use it as such), I think this
> +model carries over too much (perhaps unconsciously) into the module
> +system, which only really works if (a) you have written the script
> +yourself and (b) you control ALL the module installs. This is of course
> +fine if you are embedding, but basically means creating a general-purpose
> +Lua script for use by others is fraught with difficulties.
> 
> As for suggestions .. I’m sure many people here know the various design
> patterns, but in Lua-land it all really comes down to two issues:
> 
> 1. A unified identity system for modules (note I said identity, not name).
> This can’t depend on balkanized issues such as paths either.
> 2. A recommended pattern for using a module within code that handles
> mapping module identities to bound names.

  Okay ... how would you like to see this work?  Also, how do other
langauges like Python or Ruby handle this?  How does npm handle this, given
that has like a zillion modules?

  -spc