On Thu, 05 Apr 2012 08:49:24 -0400, deadalnix <deadal...@gmail.com> wrote:
If such a syntax is adopted, what would be the point of public imports ?
If it is still useful, then your syntax is a better choice, otherwise,
we'd better modify public import.
Another way to look at it:
A public import saves you from having to import dependent modules that you
should be importing anyway.
A 'this' import treats the other modules as if they were actually part of
the imported module in terms of namespace.
To give an example, std.range imports std.array. std.array is a module
all on its own, and has a specific set of functionality. std.range has a
different set of functionality, but you would never want to have std.range
imported without also importing std.array. Another example would be a
derived class module publicly importing the base class module.
On the other hand, something like std.container could have 15 different
container types in it. Each of these container types should really live
in their own module, in terms of maintenance and separation of private
data. For example, std.container.RedBlackTree has no business accessing
the private members of std.container.Array. But because they live in the
same module, it can. However, we don't want to define
std.container.RedBlackTree.RedBlackTree in terms of namespace. So we have
one of these combining modules, and everything still lives in the
std.container namespace, but we get all the benefits of separating the
code into individual modules.
-Steve
