Re: Packaging and importing

[Chris Marrin <chris@...>]

Rici Lake wrote:
> On 17-Aug-05, at 9:27 AM, Chris Marrin wrote:
>
> > I am using the wrong term. When I say "locals" I mean properties of 
> > the "local namespace", which is the environment being used by a 
> > particular function. So, if I have module 'a' and I want to import 
> > some or all of its properties into the environment of a function, I 
> > would just copy the property references from the module to the 
> > environment. They are both just tables, right?
>
>
> You could do that, but it's not easy to see what advantages that would 
> give you aside from saving a few keystrokes, I suppose. The package 
> namespace is in effect the public interface to a package; I wouldn't 
> have thought that importing random names into it would be a good idea.

I see it most often for "standard" things like Math. Rather than 
importing each one separately you can bring in all the functions, like 
this maybe:

    import("Math","all")
    local r = min(1,log(sin(PI*2*fraction)))

which looks a lot nicer than:

    require"Math"
    local r = Math.min(1,Math.log(Math.sin(Math.PI*2*fraction)))

IMHO. I am writing an app aimed at more casual users, so simplifications 
like this are important to me...

--
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