Avi Bryant <avi at beta4.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Anthony Hannan wrote:
> 
> > "Brent Vukmer" <bvukmer at blackboard.com> wrote:
> > > >Also, having multiple packages in the image available for
> > > >analysis, that may be conflicting in (A) and therefore not both
> > > >visible.
> > >
> > > I'm trying to imagine a sample scenario where running multiple package
> > > releases in the same image would be helpful in development...
> >
> > I'm not saying running (although that is also possible), but looking at
> > (analyzing) two different versions so you can see their differences and
> > possibly merge them.  With (A), you would have to compare just the
> > package files, since they couldn't both be loaded without one overriding
> > the other.
> 
> If you're not running the code, what advantage do you have in
> analysis if the objects are "real" classes/methods etc as opposed to
> other (package) objects modelling them?

Joshua made some good points.  I will just add that loading the actual
objects is conceptually cleaner than loading them into psuedo objects,
and avoids redundant behavior and the maintenance between them.

Also, layers may provide other useful behavior, like security/sandboxes, etc,
as Stephen mentioned in the other thread.

Cheers,
Anthony

P.S.  Sorry about my accidental repeated post under "Eliminating
superclass lookup in the VM"