Faker: Namespacing for clarity

[rpbaptist]

I like Faker because it's useful. I also like generating quotes over lorem ipsum. What detracts from the usefulnes of Faker is this:

• Faker::HarryPotter
• Faker::HeyArnold
• Faker::Hipster
• Faker::HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy
• Faker::Hobbit
• Faker::HowIMetYourMother
• Faker::IDNumber
• Faker::Internet
• Faker::Invoice
• Faker::Job
• Faker::Kpop
• Faker::LeagueOfLegends
• Faker::Lebowski
• Faker::LordOfTheRings

Out of this huge list, what I find useful is IDNumber and Internet. When I want to use this list as a reference there's a big list of noise to scroll through.

My suggestion is to namespace these, as such:

• Faker::PopCulture::HarryPotter
• Faker::PopCulture::HeyArnold
• Faker::PopCulture::HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy
• Faker::PopCulture::Hobbit
• Faker::PopCulture::HowIMetYourMother
• Faker::PopCulture::Invoice
• Faker::PopCulture::Kpop
• Faker::PopCulture::LeagueOfLegends
• Faker::PopCulture::Lebowski
• Faker::PopCulture::LordOfTheRings

For lorem generators:

• Faker::Lorem::Hipster

For core features:

• Faker::IDNumber
• Faker::Internet
• Faker::Job

This would also handle this naming:

• Faker::Lorem
• Faker::LoremFlickr
• Faker::LoremPixel

Which could be:

• Faker::Lorem::Ipsum
• Faker::Lorem::Flickr
• Faker::Lorem::Pixel

I am happy to make a PR for this, but I wanted to get some consensus on this before I do. I realize this is a breaking change, but this could of course be solved through deprecation.

[stympy]

I like your suggestion, though coming up with a taxonomy may be a challenge. :)

[rpbaptist]

Yes, I settled for PopCulture here, but I readily admit it's probably not the best fit. Faker::References? That's also not perfect. :man_shrugging:

[vbrazo]

As the modules and methods grow, we'll definitely need to create taxonomy. I have to agree with @stympy the challenge would be defining a great taxonomy. Once we decide it, I think we could separate the changes in different releases, otherwise the number of deprecated warnings will be pretty disturbing.

[vbrazo]

This group Faker::Lorem::Ipsum, Faker::Lorem::Flickr, Faker::Lorem::Pixel looks good and could be a good starting point.

[justinxreese]

I came to the issues to see if anyone had brought this up and @rpbaptist came up with the same scheme I was going to suggest. I think a PopCulture namespace is a priority, the list is a bit overwhelming as-is and it's primarily because of these. @rpbaptist and I independently coming to the same conclusion speaks to it being a pretty good start to the taxonomy.

I thought Faker::Community would be a good module for the user groups in my tests, but it turned out to be the TV show.

[vbrazo]

I created the first one: Faker::Lorem::Ipsum. Let me know your thoughts on that.

Feel free to work on Faker::Lorem::Flickr and Faker::Lorem::Pixel.

[vbrazo]

I've also added Faker::Lorem::Flickr and Faker::Lorem::Pixel to the same PR.

[vbrazo]

I've just added Faker::Lorem::Hipster to the PR as well. We should be ok with Lorem namespacing.

[Zeragamba]

Here's an attempt at trying to namespace the current list of modules:
faker namespaces.txt

[vbrazo]

We also have Faker::Bitcoin, Faker::Ethereum and Faker::Tezos. They generate addresses, contracts and etc. They could be grouped in a module too.

Perhaps Faker::Blockchain::Bitcoin, Faker::Blockchain::Ethereum and Faker::Blockchain::Tezos?

[boardfish]

I support a lot of what @SpyMaster356 is going for – much of it makes sense. I attempted to right this myself in this PR, but I didn't check there was a PR open for it first of all. In the PR, @vbrazo suggests to make lots of smaller PRs for particular namespaces, and I agree that that's probably the best way to attack this to make things easier to review.

The namespaces we want probably depends on how many levels deep we want to take things. For the sake of simplicity, I'd probably recommend just one level, which contains:

• Books
• Movies
• TV
• Comics (questionable)
  I'm guessing Marvel will get a Faker eventually, but there's also room for others like Beano. Still, I'm not sure a) if Comics is a big enough category and b) where things would go if not for comics
• Memetic (questionable)
  Fakers like Robin, ChuckNorris and MostInterestingManInTheWorld would fit under this category, but equally, they're all part of their own media. Yoda is a good example of something that should really be within the StarWars Faker.
• Music
  This was one thing I thought @SpyMaster356's recommendation could do better, but it's also hard not to justify making a second tier within this one containing Artist and Genre.
• Games
• Japanese Media
  Best to generalise Anime or Manga potential modules to this as most major manga get anime adaptations.

[cjmz]

I've got a namespaces suggestions, I've included those items that @vbrazo propose:

• Lorem:
  Faker::Lorem::Lorem
  Faker::Lorem::LoremFlickr
  Faker::Lorem::LoremPixel

• Personal
  Faker::Personal::Address
  Faker::Personal::FunnyName
  Faker::Personal::Name
  Faker::Personal::Nation
  Faker::Personal::PhoneNumber

• Type
  Faker::Type::Boolean
  Faker::Type::Number
  Faker::Type::String
  Faker::Type::Types

• Time
  Faker::Time::Date
  Faker::Time::Time

• Economic
  Faker::Economic::Bank
  Faker::Economic::Bitcoin
  Faker::Economic::Crypto
  Faker::Economic::CryptoCoin
  Faker::Economic::Currency

Beyond the names proposes by @boardfish

[boardfish]

I'm currently working on a PR to move DragonBall, OnePiece and SwordArtOnline into a Faker::JapaneseMedia namespace.

[vbrazo]

We've created a few namespaces and it's time for feedback.

Please check our unreleased_README.md out and let us know how it looks: cleaner or worse?

[boardfish]

Faker::Esport is a pretty glaring omission from the Games namespace, as are the following from these namespaces:

• RuPaul -> TvShows
• MichaelScott -> TvShows
• Hobbit -> Movies
• HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy -> Movies
• HarryPotter -> Movies

There's probably a few more in there. I also noticed the link to the Avatar documentation is broken in the README.

All that aside, I'm really happy to see that the namespacing is getting cleaned up in this gem, and I'm happy to help with some more if I get the time.

[vbrazo]

I've just fixed the avatar link. Thanks for reporting 👍

[vbrazo]

I'd also add this one:

• Faker::RockBand => Faker::Music::RockBand

[vbrazo]

@boardfish done

[richardbulger]

I have just added #1493 for The Culture series books by Ian M. Banks, and was surprised to not see a Books or Literature namespace. Dune and Lovecraft are a couple that should also be in there. Literature would be broader, potentially encompassing things like GreekPhilosophers and DcComics
I would also argue that Hobbit, HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy, HarryPotter should be in there rather than in Movies (can they span multiple namespaces?)

[vbrazo]

Would you like to work on the Faker::Book:: namespace?

[richardbulger]

@vbrazo Sure, I'll give it a go!

[richardbulger]

How does everyone feel with generators in multiple namespaces? eg:
Faker::Books::HarryPoter
Faker::Movies::HarryPoter

[stympy]

I do not like the idea of having generators in multiple namespaces.

[stympy]

That said, I can see that there might be cases where it makes sense to have different data for a movie vs. a book, so I’m open to considering the question on a case-by-case basis, but I don’t want to default to having the same code/data in two namespaces just in case someone would look in one place but not the other. :)

[justinxreese]

Just noticed the RFC on the new README here https://github.com/stympy/faker/issues/1318?_pjax=%23js-repo-pjax-container#issuecomment-437877899

It's certainly better but still very overwhelming. I personally think the default name space should be reserved for some very basic things that we're all going to use day to day when coding. Then we can reach down into the modules when we want to have some fun. I definitely like that fun spirit Faker has but only use it after I've gotten the basics in place.

It'd be hard to figure out the 10 or so that deserve to be in the default name space, but the organization might even encourage people to play and add more classes in the modules.

I noticed this time around that there appears to be quite a few classes in the default namespace that only have one method for finding quotes (Yoda, FamousLastWords, Matz, MostInterestingManInTheWorld, Shakespeare, Robin). I could make a PR for a Faker::Quotes module if I got the go-ahead from a maintainer that it would be accepted. Mention me if that's a good idea.

[Zeragamba]

A Quotes module sounds like a great idea, and it would move a fair amount of the clutter out of the default namespace. Though there are ones like Yoda that would fit better if they were merged into a larger module (ie. StarWars)

[justinxreese]

I did think about that and agree about that making sense in either place. My best solution was making a class in Quotes that calls everything from StarWars::Yoda.

module Quotes
  class Yoda
    def quote
      StarWars::Yoda.quote
    end
  end
end

That way Yoda maintains the right to define his quotes and StarWars::Yoda can do more than quotes (random Jedi move?). Might be too duplicitous.

I like writing up samples for this repo 😆

[Zeragamba]

I like the feel of having things in multiple expected places. i.e. if there is a quotes module, I would expect Yoda quotes to be in there as well as the StarWars module.

[vbrazo]

@justinxreese last week metrics

[justinxreese]

Oh neat. So I guess it's not that hard to figure out the defaults 😁

[vbrazo]

@justinxreese I just opened a new PR with the suggested Quotes namespace. Let me know if we should add more faker objects to this namespace. I couldn't identify others.

[boardfish]

@stympy I agree that having generators in multiple namespaces adds clutter, but if implementation was similar to @justinxreese's sample and we could clearly document 'child' modules, perhaps it'd be beneficial to users of the project.

[Zeragamba]

It would be a big help for modules like HarryPotter

[stympy]

@boardfish @justinxreese Agreed. I'm on board with that approach.

[vbrazo]

@justinxreese last week metrics

[justinxreese]

Looks like it stays pretty consistent, @vbrazo. Very much biographical info for people or companies. I'm assuming internet is mostly used for the email address. Often when I use Faker, I am just throwing stuff into a struct to make a thing that looks like a person.

Not sure what that means when it comes to the default namespace. Probably just that all of these ones should stay put?

[vbrazo]

@justinxreese last week metrics

[vbrazo]

@justinxreese the impact of deprecating these popular faker object would be huge, so I'd prefer to keep them in the default namespace.

[justinxreese]

@vbrazo makes sense. The pain of it would outweigh any benefit.

[cjmz]

I opened a PR to add a namespace TvShows to SuperHero. This my first opensource project pull request in my life, so please, check it two times. :smile:

[vbrazo]

I just moved Faker::Football to Faker::Sports::Football.

We have Faker::WorldCup. What do you guys think about Faker::Sports::WorldCup?

[Zeragamba]

WorldCup for which sport? :P

[justinxreese]

I just checked out the new README and it's really much less intimidating now. Still some work to do but at a place where others will totally feel encouraged to contribute to the cleanliness. Great work.

I'm for Faker::Sports::WorldCup and not worried about the "which sport" problem because anyone wondering that will be already 90% of the way to their answer

[Zeragamba]

I think we should also make the distinction between American and European Football, as they are completely different sports.

Faker::Sports::EuroFootball and Faker::Sports::UsaFootball?

[justinxreese]

As an American football fan, I won't be offended if Europeans call dibs on "football" and it's Sports::Football and Sports::AmericanFootball 😂

[Zeragamba]

we could do Faker::Sports::EuroFootball (aliased to ::football), and Faker::Sports::AmericanFootball or Faker::Sports::UsaFootball

[richardbulger]

"Soccer" is globally accepted as European football (even if we Brits scoff at it a bit).
Faker::Sports::AmericanFootball and Faker::Sports::Soccer seems tidier.

[stympy]

Being an American, my vote is for Sports::Football and Sports::Soccer :)

[petewalker]

Hi all, whilst I applaud the namespacing effort, the method you're using to deprecate is breaking backwards-compatibility. See #1576

[stympy]

Having had some time living with namespaces, I’m liking them less and less. I’m considering reverting the whole change.

[Zeragamba]

I think we should keep the namespacing as we have a huge number of generators (~160 !), and there are some cases where it's not exactly clear whats in each generator (as metioned by @justinxreese near the beginning of this issue).

We've already been sending out deprecation notices since the release of v1.9.2 (2019-02-11). I would expect that there would be a lot of annoyance from users if we reversed back to no namespaces.

[stympy]

That sounds like a +1 for releasing v2, which will have plenty of backwards incompatibility, sooner rather than later. :)

[vbrazo]

Namespaces are okay as long as we try to have good generators. I'd prefer to start thinking about the generators that aren't useful.

Contributors should explicitly tell us why they're adding a new generator by giving a use case in the PR description. I think we should add a GitHub template for the PRs and ask for that.

[Zeragamba]

Speaking of good generators, there are a few bad ones that have only one method in them (eg, Faker::Creature::Animal, Faker::Artist, Faker::TvShows::MichaelScott) We could merge some of these into other generators.

[boardfish]

@SpyMaster356 Perhaps single-method fakers could go back into the top-level generator, so we'd get Faker::Creature.animal and Faker::TvShows.michael_scott_quote for example? I can't really say this with full conviction as I get the feeling it's got caveats, but right now I can't think what those might be. Feel free to propose something else.

[PatrickLerner]

I would advocate to delete all the pop culture stuff from the main gem (who needs most of it really? and it just adds a ton of PR where everybody wants to get their list of random things into this gem) and if you really want lord of the rings character names, it can be a separate gem (lotr-faker). But I guess I am in the minority here as people seem to enjoy this.

[boardfish]

@PatrickLerner I imagine this was part of the case for #1539. A project of mine, RemoteRecord will most likely do something like this. I'm choosing to take that approach for a few reasons, but they're also reasons that support Faker retaining its current structure as I'll explain.

It might help to check it out for a bit of context, but I'm hoping my explanations here are framed in a way that can be understood without it. What's important here is that RemoteRecord plugs into any API you need, and that introduces the following differences:

• It's the responsibility of the community, not the base project, to publicize and maintain each individual module. In RemoteRecord's case, this is better because it's often in the interest of companies to have their own developers maintain their RemoteRecord extensions. The same can't really be said for Faker, in which all we're dealing with is text. As long as the writers know the subject matter and are literate, anyone can manage Faker's content library.
• Faker doesn't particularly need to be extended manually by its users since it has such a wide scope already. RemoteRecord (at least right now) will almost always want to be extended manually by writing code in app/lib/remote_record. The next stage from that is having a set of gems like remote_record-github and remote_record-spotify that folks can install as they need. Faker comes with an extensive base scope that makes this unnecessary - changing to that sort of structure, more importantly, would put more friction in the way of using Faker.