On Nov 26, 1:29 am, Xah Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.python,comp.lang.java.programmer > > 2008-11-25 > > Recently, Steve Yegge implemented Javascript in Emacs lisp, and > compared the 2 languages. > > http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/http://code.google.com/p/ejacs/ > > One of his point is about emacs lisp's lack of namespace. > > Btw, there's a question i have about namespace that always puzzled me. > > In many languages, they don't have namespace and is often a well known > sour point for the lang. For example, Scheme has this problem up till > R6RS last year. PHP didn't have namespace for the past decade till > about this year. Javascript, which i only have working expertise, > didn't have namespace as he mentioned in his blog. Elisp doesn't have > name space and it is a well known major issue. > > Of languages that do have namespace that i have at least working > expertise: Mathematica, Perl, Python, Java. Knowing these langs > sufficiently well, i do not see anything special about namespace. The > _essence_ of namespace is that a char is choosen as a separator, and > the compiler just use this char to split/connect identifiers. > Although i have close to zero knowledge about compiler or parser, but > from a math point of view and my own 18 years of programing > experience, i cannot fathom what could possibly be difficult of > introducing or implementing a namespace mechanism into a language. I > do not understand, why so many languages that lacks so much needed > namespace for so long? If it is a social problem, i don't imagine they > would last so long. It must be some technical issue? > > Could any compiler expert give some explanation? > > Thanks. > > Xah > ∑http://xahlee.org/ > > ☄
When multiple existing systems are combined, namespaces provide a quick way to prevent name clashes. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list