Developer discussion for Creative Commons technology and tools

[Asheesh Laroia <asheesh AT creativecommons.org>]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Peter Miller wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 19:14 -0800, Asheesh Laroia wrote:
> > 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.
>
> I know I resisted before, but I've almost changed my mind.
> Go ahead and nuke them.
>
> > 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..
>
> I'd still use the strcmp, some folks do *really* dumb things.  And some
> things that look dumb are not (e.g. behind a plugin for another
> language, or swig, etc)

Absolutely, we agree:

the logic would look like

if (action_uri == LL_SOME_CONSTANT || strncmp(...)) {
   ... stuff ...
}

That way, short circuiting gives us speed where possible and generality 
where not. (-:

> > I'm
> > okay with shortening e.g. LL_ATTRIBUTE_URI_REQUIRES to
> > LL_ATTRIBUTE_REQUIRES or LL_ATTR_REQUIRES or even LL_REQUIRES.
>
> No shorter than LL_ATTR_REQUIRES please, need to emphasize that its only
> useful as an apptibute name.  Reminding users it is also a URI wouldn't
> be bad, so maybe LL_ATTR_URI_REQUIRES

I'm confused - what do you mean "only useful as an attribute name"?  Isn't 
that obvious from the way it is used?  (And it's actually useful in theory 
as a URI to other RDF aware apps, but that's a Very Advanced Usage that 
should be handled with care.)

> One API change I'd very much like to see is to replace
> ll_license_chooser_t with char** because (a) this is more consistent
> with every other ll_ function, and (b) it makes more sense when talking
> about the corresponding bitmap, and (c) the absence of a
> ll_license_chooser_free function is less obvious.

I'll take a look at that and let you know what I think.

-- Asheesh.

--
Q:      How many Martians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:      One and a half.