[Help-smalltalk] Re: [feature] <import: PoolDict> for namespaces

[Stephen Compall]

Issue status update for 
http://smalltalk.gnu.org/project/issue/217
Post a follow up: 
http://smalltalk.gnu.org/project/comments/add/217

Project:      GNU Smalltalk
Version:      <none>
Component:    VM
Category:     feature requests
Priority:     normal
Assigned to:  Unassigned
Reported by:  S11001001
Updated by:   S11001001
Status:       committed
Attachment:   http://smalltalk.gnu.org/files/issues/import-pooldict-ns.patch 
(21.08 KB)

> In practice, that would mean that A.Var would not refer to a Var
defined in a shared pool of A.

I consider this to be a feature, not just an optimization.  My template
is the import feature in Common Lisp -- because GST namespaces don't
distinguish between external and internal symbols, I thought it best to
apply the most likely strategy globally for pools.

> However I am not sure that it's good to not make the import work for
classes defined in a subspace, because that means that I cannot just
take a class defined in A and wrap it into /Namespace current: B [ ]/
to move it into A.B. Can you convince me otherwise?

I am not sure what you mean.  The namespace-pool-add happens strictly
when a namespace is visited, so all namespaces added by the
class-containing-namespace walk will also have their pools added.  For
example:


"assuming A and B are undefined"
Namespace current: A [
   
   Namespace current: B [
       Object subclass: Va [
           test [
               "resolves to STInST.RBParser in
                current implementation"
               ^RBParser
       ]
   ]
]