Re: lexicons

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I think the prefix concept may have the same problem.
>
> Yes, it's inherent to the idea of letting people use shorter names for
> "local" entities, I think.  So you're basically arguing against providing
> any kind of namespace/module/package support.

I think packages are useful, but they also have their problems.

When writing Common Lisp, I'm glad that I don't have to read and write
foo:bar constantly, but I'm annoyed that I can't call my logging
function in foo for `log', because that's a reserved word from the CL
package.  (Your namespace suggestion doesn't have this problem, though.)

When writing Emacs Lisp, I'm annoyed that I'm typing `gnus-summary-foo'
all the time, but I'm happy that grep reliably finds all code that calls
`gnus-summary-foo', and that when I'm reading code, I know immediately
what function that's being called, context-free.

So...  er...  yes.  I think I am arguing against any kind of namespace
support.  >"?  

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