Developer discussion for Creative Commons technology and tools

[Jon Phillips <jon AT rejon.org>]

On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 19:14 -0800, Asheesh Laroia wrote:
> I'm preparing liblicense for a 0.5 release.  There's been a lot of great 
> work in liblicense done by people who aren't me over the last few months, 
> and it's (way past) time for that work to see a general release.

Great!

> I'm inventorying it now to see what else should be done before 0.5.  I 
> came up with an API switch I wanted to make, so I thought I'd ask the list 
> about it.  (NY, this includes you - I haven't asked anyone other than my 
> head about this.)  Be warned: No comments on this mean I'm going to get my 
> way!
> 
> We have some ll_get_* functions, like ll_get_name, ll_get_jurisdiction, 
> and ll_get_version, and also a general ll_get_attribute() function.  I 
> would like to remove the named ll_get_* functions and require users of the 
> license to use the ll_get_attribute(license_uri, LL_ATTRIBUTE_URI_PERMITS) 
> syntax.

Cool, this is what pmiller proposed on the list before as well...sounds
good...

> Advantages:
> 
> * Only one way to do it, and that way to do it extends in an obvious way 
> to the other
> 
> * This is a C library, so people who complain about the syntax can't 
> really complain - they're already in C
> * The addition of 
> * Making people aware of our constants makes it easier to show them that 
> they can often re-use these constants in other RDF-exposing libraries.
> 
> Impact on speed:
> 
> * None: If you use our (e.g.) LL_ATTRIBUTE_URI_PERMITS constant, then we 
> can do a pointer equailty check instead of a string check, which is 
> practically free, so there should be no speed loss from switching to this.
> 
> Impact on library usability:
> 
> * Hardly any: If your text editor has known-word completion, then it's 
> just as easy to expand arguments to ll_get_attribute as it is to expand 
> the function name ll_get_name.
> 
> Disadvantages:
> 
> * Only one: It makes the calls to ll_get_name(uri) etc. look longer.  I'm 
> okay with shortening e.g. LL_ATTRIBUTE_URI_REQUIRES to 
> LL_ATTRIBUTE_REQUIRES or LL_ATTR_REQUIRES or even LL_REQUIRES.

I think more informative is better.

Rock.

Jon

> Your take:
> 
> [This space intentionally left blank.]
> 
> -- Asheesh.
> 
-- 
Jon Phillips

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