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[Help-smalltalk] Re: [patch] explain that namespaces and packages aren't


From: Stephen
Subject: [Help-smalltalk] Re: [patch] explain that namespaces and packages aren't related
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:31:50 +1200
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (Macintosh/20070728)


Stephen Compall wrote:
Stephen wrote:
Note that, as with Common Lisp, the namespace
system is separate from the package loading system, so you still need to
load the package.
That is a key statement... I don't think I've seen that in the docs or at least not as clear as you've said it.

smalltalk--backstage--2.2--patch-56 also attached.

I'm not sure that saying it explicitly won't just encourage the unfortunate mental conflation of package loading and namespaces brought on by practice in certain other programming environments, though, so I may not be in favor of this patch.


Coming into Gnu-smalltalk from java/C++/ruby I was expecting a single statement would reference (and load) the correct package. So for me at least, your patch is helpful to identify that packages and namespaces are different. I can see why the two are different when I look at the history of Smalltalk, but it does seem to add complexity compared to namespaces/packages in other languages.

As an aside: looking in packages.xml was helpful - I was wanting an overview of where the packages are and what is available. Its all there.




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