> On Apr 27, 2020, at 1:01 PM, Lassi Kortela <xxxxxx@lassi.io> wrote:
>
>> A registry would be useful but it should not be the only way to name libraries.  A registry forces authors to register their libraries for every new library they want others to use.  But that can become a rather tedious process, especially if you are into rapid development and sharing a new idea “right now”.  I want to put the library up on my github account and share the link… a 60 second process at most.
>
> +1
>
> Last I checked, Racket requires new packages to be registered in order to download them using their "raco pkg" tool. The registration process is completely automated, and it's very painless and nicely done, but it'd still be nice to be able to skip it if a geographically distributed group of people is working by themselves and doesn't (yet) need to share their work.

The problem with registering a name is that it becomes reserved.  So the first one to reserve “list”, “sort”, “gui”, etc will prevent others to use those names even if they have a “better” library.

With URLs you don’t have that problem.  Yes URLs are longer, but they point unambiguously to a specific library.

>
> npm (node.js package manager) arguably shows that it may not even be desirable to publish all libraries people write in a central registry. With too many of them it becomes difficult for users to figure out which ones are polished enough for serious use.
>
> Collections like snow-fort, Akku, Chicken eggs and Emacs MELPA strike a good balance between quality and comprehensiveness IMHO.
>

Perhaps and I’m not at all against it.  It seems there are two needs… what you could call “community agreed portable libraries” and “libraries in the wild”.

Marc