When is it appropriate to rename a file?

When is it appropriate to rename a file?

[Jesse Gibbons]

There are a lot of files in gnu/packages/, and some of them contain only
one package. If I want to add a package with a similar function to one
of these solo packages, is it appropriate to rename the file? In
particular, I want to rename jrnl.scm to journal.scm and add a journal
application to it for better organization. 

I also want to note that the more I examine gnu/packages/*.scm the more
I see a serious need for refactoring. 

Re: When is it appropriate to rename a file?

[ison]

I'm not by any means the one who should be answering this question, but just
wanted to throw the idea out there that perhaps such things are best saved for
major version changes.
Because it would require every user to rethink the modules they're using in
their system config.scm (and possibly packages that aren't installed with
"system" would have to be re-installed manually).
So perhaps on Guix 2.0, 3.0, etc. is when it would be acceptable to do house
cleaning like renaming modules.

Just a thought.

Re: When is it appropriate to rename a file?

[Jesse Gibbons]

>Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2019 12:21:47 -0600
>From: ison <ison@airmail.cc>
>To: Jesse Gibbons <jgibbons2357@gmail.com>
>Cc: help-guix@gnu.org
>Subject: Re: When is it appropriate to rename a file?
>Message-ID: <20190616182146.asihmoclm4yghh6p@cf0>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>I'm not by any means the one who should be answering this question, but
>just wanted to throw the idea out there that perhaps such things are
>best saved for major version changes.
>Because it would require every user to rethink the modules they're
>using in their system config.scm
Look at some of these examples: guile-wm jrnl musl sl wv
How many users would put these in their config.scm?
>(and possibly packages that aren't installed with "system" would have
>to be re-installed manually).
I have a package and moved it to a different module. I haven't needed
to reinstall manually, and I upgraded it with a simple call to "guix
upgrade". 
>So perhaps on Guix 2.0, 3.0, etc. is when it would be acceptable to do
>house cleaning like renaming modules.
Major changes that break over 1200 packages are pushed every 2.5 months
or so according to the manual. Why should module refactoring be pushed
more rarely?

After much thought, I think I will make a new module for a new category
of package when the need arises and leave module cleanup to the
maintainers.