Root-relative namespace keys

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 10:57:22PM -0800, Allison Randal wrote:
> We already have a consistent system for annotating sub parameters, so I  
> have a hard time justifying inventing a new one. Because of this, the  
> most compelling idea to me was to make :multi a no-argument modifier to  
> .sub, and put the MMD decoration on the .params. We could make that  
> consistent with class lookups by using the same key names:
>
>   .sub 'blah' :multi
>     .param pmc 'thingy' :hll('lang') :namespace('my') :name('foo')
>
> Which would be the same as:
>
>   .sub 'blah' :multi
>     .param pmc 'thingy' :hll('lang') :name(['my';'foo'])

I'm in favor of annotating parameters with types rather than the
sub.

I greatly prefer the latter form :name(['my';'foo']), as 
opposed separating a class identifier into "parent namespace" 
and "name".  Let's consistently say that classes are associated
with namespaces and not with entries in a namespace.

> (I really want that 'name' to be 'classname' here, so maybe it should be  
> 'classname' everywhere.)

I prefer just :class(['my';'foo']).  I'm not too keen on :classname
because we aren't really talking about a name -- we're talking about
the class of the parameter.  But I can live with :classname if you
prefer that.  Other possibilities:  :mmdclass  :mmdtype  :multi_type

I don't like ":name" because it's really too close to ":named" for
parameters.

> We'll also need an annotation for "does this parameter participate in  
> MMD?" or maybe for "this parameter doesn't participate in MMD",  
> depending on which is more common.

Naively I think that if a parameter has a :class option, it participates
in MMD, and if it doesn't have such an option, then it doesn't.

Pm