Module naming conventions

[Don Clugston]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> Is this list complete?
>>
>> Convention LC: All package module names are lower case all the time.
>> Example:   import foo.bar.baz;
>> Pros:
>> *) Long established convention (~10 years) used by Phobos
>>
>> *) Differentiates module names from class names.
>>    Like class "Stream" in module "std.stream
>>
>> *) Related: prevents redundancy in fully qualified names
>> (std.stream.Stream, not std.Stream.Stream)
>>
>> *) Easy-to-remember rule ("just use lowercase") prevents naming errors
>> slipping through the cracks on case-agnostic Windows.
> 
> This is not a big issue, but an irritation: sometimes, I see code 
> developed on windows that names a file like: "Foo.h", but then 
> #include's it with "foo.h". It all works fine until one tries to port 
> the code to Linux. Worse, sometimes you'll see the reverse problem, 
> where there's a Foo.c and a foo.c on Linux and you have to port it to 
> windows.
> Having all file/module/package names in lower case is just a no-brainer 
> way to avoid this issue.
> 
> I'll also confess I just don't like filenames with caps, underscores, or 
> special characters in them, nor do I like long filenames. I have some 
> image programs that insist on writing out .JPG files, and if I forget to 
> rename them to .jpg before ftp'ing them to the web server, they don't 
> work. Using all lower case, simple filenames, minimizes problems moving 
> the files between systems.
> 
> I'm surprised nobody has asked why D doesn't simply enforce module names 
> to be in all lower case <g>. 

You could prohibit the use of module names differing only in case.

So that if one module has
import foo.bar;
and another has
import foo.Bar;
an error should be generated, even if the file(s) would be found on that OS.
The correct capitalisation should be obtained from the module statement.
(And even on Windows, you _could_ still check to see if the file case matches 
the module statement).