Mike,

>A zip file containing all the files of the package would facilitate such sharing. This is done to support intra-programmer sharing. That is not really necessary. What is necessary is to be able to access the class at runtime!

A zip file is a distribution package. To play devils advocate your position should be that you don't want one zip file with a ton of stuff in it, you'd rather have a ton of zip files ach with one thing in it.

>I saw nothing about packaging in Ellen's discussion.

Please reread it then because she does discuss in as it relates to UML diagrams and classlibs.

>"A package is purely conceptual.

Not really, there are different kinds of packaging some logical (conceptual) and some physical.

>It does not exist at runtime!" A VCX is only a PHYSICAL package.

It does to

set classlib to cControl additive

gives me runtime access to all of the classes in the package.

In C# we have using. In Java there are the import and package statements.

Here's another relevant Java reference http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/packages.html

>I'm sorry Dave ;). You decided arbitrarily that these classes belong together. I see this as aggregating non-like classes. Everybody handles this differently and that is getting in my way alot.

It's a logical packaging to me. When was the last time you developed an app that had a UI where it only consisted or textboxes or labels?

Having cTextbox and cLabel and cGrid as well as all the other commonly used controls in one place is convenient.

>cObject in cObject.vcx sounds right to me. I have a system that uses only Excel so your WordHelper would not help me. ;)

But it's right there willing and waiting to be used. *g*

>I was pretty sure that would be your position. You are not providing any examples of how it would get in your way.

Having 500 classlibs in my project manager compared to 30 would be in my way. Having 1000 files on my hard drive and in VSS compared to 60 would be in my way. Having 500 entries in my SET CLASSLIB statement compared to 30 would be in my way.

>I used to do what you are doing! MaxFrame for a time had a set of classlibs that grew up over time. I wanted to create a COM DLL using one of the business objects. This DLL was huge because VFP pulled in all sorts of stuff. Drew thankfully refactored the PHYSICAL class packaging to reduce this bloating.

Did he refactor it all the way down to one class per classlib?

>I know one aspect where this would get in your way. You would have to refactor alot to get to where I am. Conversely I'll never have to refactor again. Hopefully you'll see the light someday.

Ain't gonna happen my friend.

>Thanks for taking the time.

It just feels like you are being argumentative. You asked for some examples of packaging and I gave them to you. It's obvious you are stuck (quite happily) with a one class per classlib packaging structure, that's fine if it suits your style. To me it's not atomic it's quarkic *g* my packaging choice pulls the quarks together into more easily accessed atoms.