Re: [AgileWiki] Norm, some thoughts on inherited namespace vs classifiers

[Bill la F. <bil...@su...>]

Finally got a chance to have a long talk with Norm, including this 
topic. Conclusion: Topics are organized so you can find them, while 
Ledger Sections are used to create structures. And so the (unextended) 
namespace of a Topic is only its direct ancestors, siblings and 
children, while an LSec also inherits the namespaces of its parent.

This is a big divergence from AW2 and gives you a lot more control over 
topic namespaces... once classifiers are implemented.

Bill

Bill La Forge wrote:

> Norm, I really like analogies when reasoning about classifiers.
>
> Now in Java programming, namespace is inherited two different ways, 
> depending on granularity:
>
>    1. At the module level, only classifiers (include statements) and
>       full path names are used.
>    2. Within a module, a nested block inherits (structurally) from the
>       blocks it is embeded in.
>
> Now lets look at books. Again, I find the use of classifiers depends 
> on granularity:
>
>    1. A book takes no context from where it is located. Reshelving a
>       book in a library has little impact on its content.
>    2. Within a book, a chapter takes its general context from the
>       book, a section has the context of the chapter, etc.
>
> So I'm thinking we can apply the same approach to the Ark:
>
>    1. Topics (Ark, Cabinets, Drawers, Folders and Pages) should mostly
>       use explict classifiers for defining their namespace.
>       Reorganizing topics should not be difficult. Whereas
>       dependencies on where a topic is located would greatly reduce
>       the agility of the whole system.
>    2. Ledger Sections, while able to take advantage of classifiers to
>       extend their namespace, largely depend on the structure they are
>       in for their context and namespace.
>
> As I've always said, people tend to overlook the impact of 
> granularity. Things work different at different levels of 
> granularity--with fine granularity weak forces tend to dominate, while 
> strong forces dominate the larger levels of granularity. (If I may 
> borrow so blithly from physics!)
>
> Bill