please don't use one-letter nicknames (eg :d)

[Tamas Papp]

CLNU> (package-nicknames :asdf-driver)
("ASDF-UTILS" "ASDF-DRIVER" "D")

Although there is no agreed-upon policy against very short nicknames, I don't think that one- or two-letter nicknames are a very good idea for non-internal use, as clashes are very likely. Upon loading asdf-driver, I immediately had a conflict with the nickname :d which is use for an (unreleased) debugging library of mine.

Maybe asdf-d would be a good choice?

[Faré (fahree)]

asdf-d is clearly out of the question, since the whole point is to have a very short nickname.
:ad would probably be just as clashy. I'd rather remove the nickname altogether.

All in all, it's indeed a matter of claiming a scarce resource, or leaving it unclaimed.

If you're claiming the global resource — well, so did I, and I seem to have done it publicly first.

If you're claiming a policy to leave it globally unclaimed — that would only make the resource scarcer and less useful, unless we either
1) encourage people to have unpublished and unpublishable libraries with short names
  (akin to the 10. network in IPv4)
2) encourage people to locally rename their packages to have shorter names.
Yet in either of these cases, whichever mechanism is used to give those libraries short names
global or local could easily deal with shadowing the nickname of the global library,
as with my package-renaming system, for instance.

I require more opinions on the matter.

[Faré (fahree)]

This bug requires more scrutiny, but a decision should be taken ASAP.

[Stelian Ionescu (sionescu)]

On Tue, 2013-02-05 at 12:42 +0000, Tamas Papp wrote:
> Public bug reported:
>
> CLNU> (package-nicknames :asdf-driver)
> ("ASDF-UTILS" "ASDF-DRIVER" "D")
>
> Although there is no agreed-upon policy against very short nicknames, I
> don't think that one- or two-letter nicknames are a very good idea for
> non-internal use, as clashes are very likely.

I agree. Better reserve short nicknames for private code.

--
Stelian Ionescu a.k.a. fe[nl]ix
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
http://common-lisp.net/project/iolib

[Faré (fahree)]

I didn't have much feedback, but it's overwhelmingly negative. I also remember how I felt when I didn't have :d as a nickname for what *I* wanted, and the proper universalization of that feeling is to make it available for everyone for what *they* want.

Rename-package isn't far away from me or from them.

Nickname removed in 2.28.2.

[Faré (fahree)]

Released in 2.29.