A little namespace "proposal"

Lex Spoon lex at cc.gatech.edu
Tue Apr 20 15:50:03 UTC 2004




> > One thing that bothers me is the idea that a class will only be
> > interested in a single namespace.  If I write some code, it seems that I
> 
> No, you are misinterpreting the class creation template as if it was an
> "import". It is not.
> The class *resides* in a single namespace. It has no imports so it has
> no notion of "interest".
> 

FYI, at this point I have no idea what you are proposing.  These are
just words and it doesn't help me to say they are wrong. " Reside"
versus "import" versus "interest" does not help clear things up.  I
would think that where you choose to reside is part of an expression of
interest, and that on a computer, importing and referencing and indeed
"residing" in a location are all mostly the same.

I guess I will wait on another summary writeup, or I will load your code
and play with it.  I'd love to try and help out here, because this is an
issue that can either make Squeak a lot better or a lot worse.  But I'm
adrift now.


> > may very well want to import from both Tweak and from
> > RegularExpressions.  Why should I have to pick which short names my code
> > will be allowed to use?
> 
> You aren't picking, see above. :)

Either it "lives" in Tweak or it lives in RegularExpressions, right?  I
type it in one way or I type it in the other.  How is this not "picking"
?


> Yes, IMHO this is almost *exclusively* about end user aspects. Names in
> themselves are for *us* not the Compiler.

In fact, these items are not even in conflict.  Compilers are for end
users, too: they translate between human languages and computer
languages.  Some circles in fact call them translators, which is a much
better name.


-Lex



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