NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/lang/perl/7532

Text File | 1992-12-21 | 1.8 KB | 36 lines

Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!news.cerf.net!netlabs!lwall
From: [e-mail] (Larry Wall)
Subject: Re: Package & Namespace Question
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References: <BzD4Hw.AG8@da_vinci.it.uswc.uswest.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:02:21 GMT
Lines: 23

In article <BzD4Hw.AG8@da_vinci.it.uswc.uswest.com> [e-mail] (Randy J. Ray) writes:
: Why is it that: when calling subroutines defined in the main namespace from
: within some package, you must explicitly refer to main? Why is there not some
: syntactical rule that says, "If this routine is not defined at this level,
: look for it in main before reporting an error"? I can understand specifying
: &main'phred() when you want to use that instead of a package-defined &phred.
: Is it that main is not necessarily above other packages in hierarchy, and
: therefore it is not the natural progression to look for those routines
: elsewhere?

There is no namespace hierarchy in Perl4.  There is likely to be one in
Perl5, but I think you'd have to explicitly declare something like
"package main'foo" to place package foo under package main.  The
primary motivation for nesting packages would be to provide inheritance
of object methods, and I don't see the need offhand for every class to
derive from package main.  If you've got a good reason to do so, now is
the time to let me know.  I may be hubristic, but I'm not proud.  :-)

I'll go so far as to claim that in certain fortuitous ways, I'm kinda
stupid.  I'm not particularly proud of being stupid, but that's why Perl
is understandable to the huddled masses.  Call it the Pooh Approach.

Larry