Re: [PATCH] master: variables: rename namespace as api.namespace.

[Joel E. Denny]

On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Akim Demaille wrote:

> Hi Joel,

Hi Akim.

> Sorry for the delays.  I sometimes wished we use a ticket system,
> sometimes it's not entirely trivial which threads are closed, and
> which ones still need changes.

Savannah has something.  If we could interact with it entirely via email 
with embedded commands, I'd be enthusiastic about it.  I just took a quick 
glance, and I didn't see any feature like that.  Maybe I missed it.  
Anyway, I suppose that would require something like gpg-signed emails for 
authentication of members who can open and close issues.

> Maybe we should resurrect TODO and
> keep it up to date.

I'll try to remember to put major issues in there.  I suppose master is 
the appropriate branch even if an issue pertains to a different branch.  
Otherwise, it'll get confusing where to look.

However, for small issues (like the %initial-action documentation I never 
got around to -- thanks for getting it!), it's probably almost as easy to 
write the needed patch as to add a TODO entry.  In these cases, I'm 
usually too occupied to do either, and I just want to say yes to the 
submitter.  If all I had to do were add a "NewIssue" command to the email, 
this would be easy.  I wonder if there's any tracker system like that out 
there.  I might google later.

Should I add "better TODO" to TODO?  :)

> Anyway, I have installed the following patch.  It changes the way you
> treated the two previous obsolete names, but I think it is simpler and
> more general this way.

I like it.

> We could also easily issue warnings for
> obsolete names at this point, which would help addressing your point
> in the second paragraph: this way the user would be less surprised to
> hear about a variable name she did not enter.

Good idea.  The only drawback I can think of is that the warning might 
annoy users if we end up changing a name multiple times across multiple 
releases as we sort out our namespace scheme.  But hopefully that won't 
happen.