Naming
======

2024-09

We need to decide several names.

1. The crate name. What do users `use`? For example, `use monetdb` vs. `use monetdb_rs` etc.
   The [api-guidelines] recommend that
   *crate names should not use -rs or -rust as a suffix or prefix. Every crate
   is Rust! It serves no purpose to remind users of this constantly.*

2. The project name, typically also the name of the GitHub repository etc. In
   this case, adding -rust or -rs is preferrable because we have dozens of MonetDB client libraries, and this is the Rust one.

3. The name announced in the clientinfo. If you run `SELECT client FROM
   sessions` on a recent MonetDB version, what does the Rust client library call itself?
   See the table below for what other clients do.


What do other clients do?
-------------------------

| Project name | Language | Import                            | Announcement           |
| ------------ | -------- | --------------------------------- | ---------------------- |
| libmapi      | C        | #include <mapi.h>                 | libmapi 11.51.3        |
| ODBC         | *many*   | "Driver={MonetDB};Host=..."       | ODBC / libmapi 11.51.3 |
| pymonetdb    | Python   | import pymonetdb                  | pymonetdb 1.8.2        |
| monetdb-java | Java     | "jdbc:monetdb://..."              | monetdb-java 3.4       |
| MonetDB-PHP  | PHP      | require 'monetdb/php_monetdb.php' | -                      |
| monetdb-perl | Perl     | DBI->connect('dbi:monetdb:');     | -                      |


Similar projects
----------------

There is an unmaintained package 'monetdb-rs' on crates.io. It's not a library
but an executable that prints "Hello, world!".

An earlier effort by Panagiotis Koutsourakis and Mitchell Weggemans was called
[rust-monetdb]. Its readme calls it 'monetdb-rust'. It contains two crates, one
called 'monetdb' and one called 'mapi'.

On GitHub there is also [shmutalov/monetdb-rust]. It seems to support MAPI v8 (!) and v9
and the latest commit was in early 2016. It contains the crate 'monetdb'.


Conclusion
----------

The name of the project should be 'monetdb-rust' for consistency with monetdb-java, -php, -perl, etc. The abbreviated form -rs is unsuitable because (a) a stub crate by that name already exists on crates.io, and (b) people who don't know Rust can immediately understand
-rust but not -rs.

The crate name should be 'monetdb', without -rust. A name like 'monetdb-client'
is overkill because the MonetDB server will never be rewritten in Rust.

The clientinfo name should use the project name, not the crate name:
'monetdb-rust X.Y.Z', not 'monetdb X.Y.Z'.





[api-guidelines]: https://rust-lang.github.io/api-guidelines/naming.html#casing-conforms-to-rfc-430-c-case

[rust-monetdb]: https://github.com/MonetDBSolutions/rust-monetdb

[shmutalov/monetdb-rust]: https://github.com/shmutalov/monetdb-rust