Which namespace should I upload to?

harleypig has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a generic wrapper for eBay webservices. Initially I was going to upload it to the CPAN under the Webservice::eBay namespace but someone doing something similar was going to go with Net::eBay because of Net::Amazon.

Both have valid points. I'm curious as to which namespace the monks would suggest and why.

Update

Even though there are few replies and it's only been a few hours since I posted this question the replies I've gotten have bolstered my opinion that this should go under the Webservice::eBay namespace.

I did initially think of registering the eBay namespace but didn't for the very reason mentioned in one reply; namely that I don't want to appear to be an official support for eBay and all that entails.

So I'll upload a developer release to the CPAN under the Webservice::eBay namespace. Thanks for the insightful and helpful replies.

Harley J Pig

Comment on Which namespace should I upload to?

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Re: Which namespace should I upload to? by xdg (Monsignor) on Aug 12, 2005 at 17:13 UTC
Given that Net:: is already cluttered with everything from low-level tools to abstract interfaces to net services, I'd opt for the Webservice:: as that seems more specific and there are plenty of other web service modules there to keep it company. People will likely search for "ebay" anyway and find your module without difficulty. -xdg Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.	[reply]
Re: Which namespace should I upload to? by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Aug 12, 2005 at 18:49 UTC
On the modules list (modules AT perl.org) we tell people that Net:: is for network protocol implementations, such as FTP, SSH, and so on. It is cluttered with other things, but don't add to the clutter because someone else did. :) Things that use a particular protocol without implementing the networking details themselves belong in another namespace. Webservices happen over HTTP, but you aren't implementing the network part of that: you're just putting the right things in the message body (or header). I'd like to see more top-level namespaces myself. The Webservices::* thing has always been pretty ugly to me. eBay::* or Amazon::* seem like better names. People don't care so much about how they do it as what they do. They are more likely to think "I need to interact with eBay" rather than "I want to use a webservice". However, we've had at least one company that complained about top-level names: when you take on the top-level namespace, it appears to be more "official" or "supported" or whatever. But, as David says, people are going to search for "eBay", so they'll find it as long as you have that string in there. Good luck ;) -- brian d foy <brian@stonehenge.com>	[reply]
Re^2: Which namespace should I upload to? by castaway (Parson) on Aug 12, 2005 at 22:24 UTC
Having just peeked at the Webservice:: namespace, I agree. It seems to contain mostly poorly named modules that arent actually using what I'd call a webservice (ie an official API and not webscraping).. C.	[reply]


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