On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 20:22:01 +, Oliver White wrote:
Hiya. I'm about to start work on some GIS programming in Perl, and
will likely end up with a few modules that might usefully go onto
CPAN.
From what I've read on the FAQs though, it seems like a bit of a
minefield to
choose a name that someone else doesn't want,
See below.
and to find out if
anyone's already working in the same area. I did some searches on
the CPAN website for likely modules, while the documentation
suggests I ask on some mailing lists, which I presume includes this
one?
Yes, and possibly a post on comp.lang.perl.modules. But this list is
where the issues will be argued back and forth.
As a first step, I was considering adding a module to read GSHHS
data [a binary format for coastline data] and give it a name
something like Geo::GSHHS. More info at the site:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/wessel/gshhs/gshhs.html
To help us understand the problem better, could you spell out 'GSHHS'
and 'GIS'?
Any comments? Is this the right place to ask?
Yes, this is *definitely* the right place to ask.
Is there already
code somewhere that does it? Would anyone be offended if I wrote
the module?
No one will take offense if you write the module, but (as you imply
above) our fellow module-authors are picky about the names of new
modules.
One consideration here: In the last week or so, there has been
discussion on this list re the general appropriateness of the 'Geo'
namespace. It seems to be doing double-duty for both 'Geometry' and
'Geography' and some are advocating putting geographic modules in the
'Geography' namespace. I'm not sure where that discussion ended up;
check the archives or Google it. But you might want to wait for that
discussion to resolve before finalizing your own module's name.
Jim Keenan
