[development] Rename hook_menu ?

[Geoff Staples]

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-----Original Message-----
From: development-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:development-bounces at drupal.org]
On Behalf Of James Walker
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:56 AM
To: development at drupal.org
Subject: Re: [development] Rename hook_menu ?


On 13-Dec-06, at 2:43 AM, Dries Buytaert wrote:
>
> On 12 Dec 2006, at 22:19, Michael Favia wrote:
>> Karoly Negyesi wrote:
>>> Today it was raised in #drupal that hook_menu has so little to do 
>>> with menus nowadays that
>>
>> I was initially confused by this and underestimated the hooks 
>> importance and functionality. At first i thought the name wasn't as 
>> important as it's proper documentation as a pillar of the drupal 
>> system. But after a moment of reflection, I remember being confused 
>> by this on my first time through as well.
>>
>> I'm not saying the documentation isn't there I'm just relating that i 
>> didn't find it by default like I found FAPI and the other hooks 
>> intuitive, etc probably because it was called a Menu system and I 
>> discounted it as what i was looking for. Anything more descriptive 
>> sounds good to me. Control, route, path, etc. I hope I would have 
>> noticed any of those for what they are.
>
> Great feedback, Michael. I know a few people that told me the exact 
> same story.  Karoly senses this as well -- otherwise he would not have 
> made the suggestion.  It's a real problem and I think we should fix 
> it.
>
> Renaming hook_menu() causes some pain, but in the long term, it will 
> pay off.  As we are going to completely overhaul the menu system in 
> Drupal 6, this is the right time to make semantic improvements.  Like 
> it or not, but your menu code is going to break anyway.
>
> Thus, I'm in favor of renaming hook_menu() to hook_router() as that is 
> semantically more accurate and matches the terminology used in other 
> systems (eg. RoR and PEAR).
>
> I'd be happy to debate and weigh alternative names but let's not 
> invent new terminology for an existing pattern.  Let's go with
> hook_router() for now, or come up with a list of names that other 
> systems use.

Sure, I'll throw in my $0.02... wth. I think that with a rewrite of menu
(that chx has underway already), it makes it an ok time to switch the naming
around. I agree it's gonna break anyway, let's get it right.

I'm ok with hook_router, although in my experience hook_dispatch might be
more MVC "true" - certainly in the Java world. I can put a  
+1 behind either hook_router or hook_dispatch though.

--
James Walker :: http://walkah.net/ :: xmpp:walkah at walkah.net