Stack name uniqueness {was: Re: Making "Wells": Whose Control Is It Anyway?)

[Richard Gaskin]

graham samuel wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:09:20 -0800, Richard Gaskin 
> <ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:
>
>> Stack IDs are variable by design.  They are potentially useful in only
>> rare cases, and the recommended method to refer to stacks is to use the
>> long name, which is always unique.
>
> How come then that I can't have two stacks with the same name in the IDE 
> at the same time - even if they're substacks of different mainstacks? I 
> have often wished to do this, so that I can have the old and new 
> versions of a stack in the machine at the same time in order to 
> cannibalise scripts etc. But the IDE won't let you do it (I just tried 
> it again, to be sure). This has been discussed in the past, I believe, 
> but so far I haven't tracked down what RR people thought about the issue.

The long name of a stack is always unique because it includes the file 
paths.

The limitation of requiring that short names also be unique is 
arbitrary, and unrelated to stack IDs (which have little place in most 
scripts and should be avoided).  If name conflicts were resolved by 
being aware of the file path, as they are in SuperCard since 1989, the 
issue of short-name conflicts goes away.

There's a request in Bugzilla to adopt this proven SuperCard convention:
<http://support.runrev.com/bugdatabase/show_bug.cgi?id=1061>

The request would have no impact on backward compatibility (it increases 
options, not limits them, so anyone adhering to the older limitations 
would not be affected), and would allow what you're looking for.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com