Re: Proper namespaces in Elisp

[Helmut Eller]

> Anyway, are there any contemporary objections to Nic's plan, in
> particular I am interested in knowing if there any any major objections
> to Nic's reader logic:
>
> - given a string X
> - lookup X in the local obarray
> - if it exists return the symbol
> - else
> -  lookup X in the global obarray
> -  if it exists return the symbol
> -  else
> -    add the symbol to the local obarray

The problem with this approach is that the namespace management is done
by the Lisp reader, while many poeple (RMS in particular) think it
should be done by the compiler (like lexical scoping).  In other words,
those people would like a mechanism to manage the names of variable
bindings not a mechanism to manage symbols.

Helmut