Hacker News Reader

Comment by dom96 | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it a little odd that these are called modules when they sound very much like packages? In many languages, a module is just a source code file that can be imported. Why is Go redefining this term?

View on HN

I don't think there's a universal definition (as showed by the other replies to you, saying, actually it's the oppisite...) I think you just have to learn the meaning language by language. Here is someone asking about the nuance in Python:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19198166/whats-the-diffe...

So Go can do what it wants as long as it is clear and you can find its definitions easily.

Go's terminology matches java, and is the exact reverse of your comments: a package is a namespace, a module is a bundle of 1..n namespaces (packages).

Java "packages" are namespaces, Java "modules" are modules, and Maven/Ivy "modules" are packages.

Maven modules are a bit of a mess, it's a set of packages but a package can be split into different Maven modules.

I agree with the GP that go package/module are similar to Java package/module

Maven modules aren’t necessarily packages; you can have POM only maven artifacts for things like BOM’s, for example.

Thankfully the whole split-package nonsense will eventually go away, since the JPMS doesn’t allow a package to reside in multiple modules.

Java packages (namespaces) can be split across Maven modules (packages).

That doesn't seem weird to me. Lots of languages can split their namespaces across packages.

Yeah, that bothers me as well. Especially knowing that Go was in many ways inspired by Wirthian languages, in which a module is, well, a module.

Go already has a concept called 'package' (think Java package).

The only reason is to be backwardly compatible with the Go community calling what they have at the minute packages. It is foreign to D developers too where packages are at the top level, then modules, etc.

What's crucial is that version numbers be tied to atomic units of distribution, regardless of what those units of distribution are called.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com