Re: forcing function execution as a core function or from a certain package

[Sergei Steshenko]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden>
> To: Sergei Steshenko <address@hidden>
> Cc: Octave users list <address@hidden>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 10:55 PM
> Subject: Re: forcing function execution as a core function or from a certain 
> package
> 
> On 10 July 2012 15:54, Sergei Steshenko <address@hidden> wrote:
>>  So, how about introducing namespaces in Octave (instead of automatic 
> broadcasting) ?
> 
> We can't do that. Matlab conflicts. Matlab does indeed have some sort
> of namespacing, but it doesn't really work:
> 
>     
> http://abandonmatlab.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/the-mathworks-doesnt-even-know-how-to-look-up-functions-in-their-own-global-namespace/
> 
> - Jordi G. H.
>

The link you gave me does not at all prove Octave developers can't implement 
namespaces.

For example, Octave developers can implement namespaces as in Perl, i.e.

Foo::Doo:: ... Hoo::bar

notation is allowed and _demand_ that all Octave packages follow the scheme. 
This will be a superset of Matlab language, and traditional Matlab-like code 
will still pollute global namespace, but what comes from Octave and its 
packages will be clean.

Perl's built-in functions are called without '::' prefix, e.g.

substr
.

And, as in Perl, there should be a mechanism of explicit exporting into global 
namespace - sometimes it does make sense, a good example in Perl is POSIX 
module: http://perldoc.perl.org/POSIX.html . And not exporting is easy - the 
cost is _just_ '()', i.e. just _two_ characters.

Regards,
  Sergei.