[e-lang] Module naming and identification

[Kevin Reid]

On Apr 13, 2009, at 23:49, Brian Warner wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:48:09 -0600
> zooko <zooko at zooko.com> wrote:
>
>> Another is the Python "setuptools" tool, which accepts an optional
>> md5sum in the fragment of a package URL, and if that fragment is
>> present then setuptools rejects the package downloaded from that URL
>> if its doesn't match the md5sum.
>
> Note that this is an immutable "strong name": there's no facility to  
> say
> "accept any version of the package which is signed by the following  
> key".
>> From what I've seen, this makes developers reluctant to declare a  
>> "strong
> name" dependency upon some package, because sooner or later that  
> will fail,
> when the upstream supplier stops hosting that old version (in  
> preference of a
> newer one).

What I had hoped is that such immutable-names can replace the case  
where you would otherwise be tempted to *copy* the code into your own  
system (which also does not follow updates automatically). You can  
still keep a copy for availability purposes, but you won't have an  
*unlabeled* copy of who knows what.

-- 
Kevin Reid                            <http://homepage.mac.com/kpreid/>