[development] "Package" misuse

[Kevin Reynen]

We use 'package' with modules related to the Open Media project.  We
also prefix our modules with om_.

Another module we maintain in MERCI.  MERCI is used by most Open Media
sites, but not only Open Media sites so I put it in its own package.
MERCI started as a single module.  Now there are 4 submodules included
with the MERCI project as well as additional functionality added by
the Agreservations project and its modules.

Who would to determine when several modules should be grouped into a
package if not the developers?

In my installs I have dozens of packages, many of which only have a
single module... when the site starts.  Then the module matures, is
broken up into submodules, other developers extend the functionality
with additional modules.

Flags (flag), Licenses (creativecommons), Statistics
(google_analytics), Metadata (pbcore) all start this way and I can see
how this would be annoying if you only install one module in that
package... but the reverse issue ends up being true as people install
more modules in the package.

The same discussion could be had about when to break modules up into
includes, submodules, multiple projects/modules...

This just HAS to be left up to the developer's discretion and no
single approach is going to make everyone happy.

---

Kevin Reynen - Senior Developer
Open Media Foundation - Putting the power of the
media and technology in the hands of the people.
www.openmediafoundation.org

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Earnie Boyd
<earnie at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> nan wich wrote:
>>
>> Okay, folks, I am now on a campaign. According to "Writing .info files
>> (Drupal 6.x)" [http://drupal.org/node/231036], regarding the use of
>> "package" in your .info files:
>>
>>    "In general, this field should only be used by large multi-module
>>    packages, or by modules meant to extend these packages, such as CCK,
>>    Views, E-Commerce, Organic Groups and the like. All other modules
>>    should leave this blank. As a guideline, four or more modules that
>>    depend on each other (or all on a single module) make a good
>>    candidate for a package. Fewer probably do not."
>>
>> I am actively working on a very large site and adding (occasionally
>> deleting) modules several times a week. Sometimes they are very hard to
>> find because of all those misused "package" designations. Please,
>> please, please, if your module does not meet the guidelines, remove that
>> line from your .info files so that the module ends up in "Other," where
>> it belongs. And please don't tell me about the various module page
>> organization modules that the site owner doesn't want added.
>
> Wow, I can't believe it has taken this long for this issue to arise again in
> this list.  The advise I received when bringing up this scenario when it was
> added in Drupal 5 was, open an issue ticket with a patch for the offending
> module.
>
> I've been thinking about a module to list the modules in alphabetic order by
> module file name giving the 'package' as a column.  It is really a headache
> to try to find that new module you just added to the file system in the
> module list.
>
> --
> Earnie
> -- http://progw.com
> -- http://www.for-my-kids.com
>