=?ISO-8859-1?Q?st=E9phane_ducasse?= <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:
> We do not like the idea that in a method body you can escape your 
> current namespace
> and access a class in another namespace. We do not want to have 
> internamespace spaghetti code.
> We prefer a model where import is done at namespace level (because this 
> is the job of the namespace) and method body only see names imported as 
> if they would be in the same namespace.
> 
> I hope this helps but I already said that this is in the archives and 
> we always said it, again and again.

There was a discussion on this in USENET a while ago.  VisualWorks lets
you import names at a variety of levels, but people tended to prefer
importing at larger scopes.  If I remember correctly (and I'm not
certain), I think people were complaining about *class-level* imports,
saying that you should really import at the package level.

I can't remember if method-level imports came up, but it might be
interesting to google for it.  Or, heck, to ask again on
comp.lang.smalltalk.

My thoughts?  Hmm.  I don't have any strong feeling.  I just want us to
have *some* way to divide up the namespace, so that packages do not
collide so easily and so that I can stop naming my classes with
prefixes.

-Lex