From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2005-11-16T05:07:17+09:00
Subject: toplevel namespace justification

When is using the toplevel constant namespace justified? (Other then
for creating your own namespace obviously) Should it essentially NEVER
be used? Or is there some cases where it is reasonable? For instance
some classes seem so basic they feel like they belong there, like a
Tuple class. But perhaps the space should be reserved for Ruby built-in
stuff only, PERIOD?

On the otherhand perhaps it should be FREELY usable and a way should be
provided to mitigate if neccessary, for example:

  module SafePlace
    import 'somebodies/toplovel/stuff'
  end

Or is this approach problematic?  I should point out we don't have a
selective #include either, so for example:

  module MySpace
    class X ; end
    class Y ; end
  end

How could one pull X up to toplevel if they wanted w/o bringing Y?
Perhaps:

  X = MySpace::X

but there is a caution here b/c poorly written classes would have
problems with this. Okay, I'm starting to get off on a tagent, but the
original question remains: how should we handle the toplevel space a
cooperative community?

T.