[Sugar-devel] Name for Sugar Packages

[Aleksey Lim]

On Sun, Aug 01, 2010 at 04:07:15PM +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 00:24, Aleksey Lim <alsroot at member.fsf.org> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Just wondering, how to name Sugar Packages.
> 
> What are you meaning by "Sugar Packages"? Is there a wiki page or
> something I have missed?

I'm collecting info on [1]
but it is still in preliminary stage...
I'm experimenting with local OBS[2] instance, after getting some useful
results it will be available on refinery.sl.o for trying. After that,
I'm planing to share my vision in more formal form with requesting new
SL Team - Refinery Team.

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activity_Team/Zero_Sugar
[2] https://build.opensuse.org/

> > The reasons to not reuse "package" name - it is not regular
> > (GNU/Linux distributions) packages, because:
> >
> >  * primal deploying model is decentralized (via 0install) not centralized
> >    which is the core point of regular distros
> >  * sugar "packages" still could be represented as regular packages to
> >    support centralized sugar distributions but in that case it will
> >    look like tunneling, e.g., ssh tunnels via http
> >  * in most cases, "packages" will contain results of doer experiments,
> >    e.g., not fully tested/QAed/etc stuff like packages in regular
> >    distributions (at least in stable distro releases)
> >  * in most cases, "package" maintainers will be their developers
> >    because there is no need in any "packaging" work except supporting
> >    an analog of activity.info file (for activities)
> >
> > The reasons to not reuse "activity" name:
> >
> >  * "packages" might contain not only activities but libraries, other
> >    (not)well distro packaged dependencies, .xol content or sugar itself
> >  * it is about deploying content not about its quality
> >
> > The reasons to not reuse "bundle" name:
> >
> >  * distribution will happen not only (or, usually, not at all) via bundles
> >    (e.g. .xo bundles)
> >
> > And the last but not least :) reason, it would be really cool to have special
> > name for sugar packages, e.g, Ruby has "gems", Python has "eggs".
> 
> Just wanted to mention that I have heard several times of the
> difficulty that newcomers have with these names inspired in sugar
> puns.
> 
> For us that have been thinking about Sugar every day for several years
> now it may seem convenient (and fun) to have very distinctive names
> but for the rest we are making it more difficult to think of Sugar.
> 
> I don't think we really need to be so afraid of using names that are
> already being used in other contexts and that we can trust users to be
> ready to discover any Sugar specificities. Just consider how these
> alternatives sound to someone who is just starting to discover what
> Sugar is:
> 
> Glucose -> core modules
> Fructose -> core or demonstration activities
> ASLO -> activities directory
> IAEP -> sugar-general, sugar-discussion, ...
> etc.

Well, it depends on how someone is seeing Sugar, for me, it is a Game (nobody
invented a method to educate better then playing). "Special" sugar names
is a part of this game.

-- 
Aleksey