Selector Namespaces (was Re: ruby-dev summary 20201 - 20315)

At 11:00 AM +0900 6/5/03, Chad Fowler wrote:
>>>This topic came up at RubyConf 2001 during David Black's Ruby Behaviors
>>>talk.  David Simmons (creator of SmallScript or S#) suggested the need for
>>>something called "selector namespaces", which has been discussed (with
>>>David's input) in ruby-talk:18567.
>>
>>
>>It's actually not all that difficult under some circumstances, but 
>>there are some costs associated with it. Basically what you need is 
>>both lexical namespaces and namespace overlays. Not a trivial task, 
>>by any means, but doable if you need it. (Whether it's worthwhile 
>>or not is a separate issue, of course)
>
>Could you whip us up a quick working prototype so we can see how it feels? ;)

I've already got perl and parrot's internals wedged into my brain--if 
I added Ruby's, well, I expect Horrible Lovecraftian Things would 
happen. Not, mind, that anyone's likely to notice, but still... :)

>But, seriously, will parrot have these features?

Yeah, it's an outgrowth of the support needed for some of Python's 
namespace stuff, so it'll be in there. I'm not thrilled about the 
cost, but there's pie involved, so one does what one must.

Selector Namespaces, for those who're following along, are 
essentially lexical namespaces. They allow you to have a local 
override to a global (generally) name, or a name that only exists 
inside a lexical scope. This way you can have, for example, a Foo 
method for class Bar that only is visible in some scope--it may mask 
an existing Foo, or may be brand new and only exist inside that 
scope. This way you can have private versions of methods, private 
methods, and even private classes if you want.

To make this work, generally you need nested name tables. Each 
lexical scope has a pointer to a name table, and when you go look up 
a name, you look in the lexical table. Each lexical table has a 
pointer to an outer table, which potentially points to its outer 
table, and so forth. When you look a name up, you walk up the tables 
until you find the name, or fail.

As you can imagine, this makes name lookup a bit slower, since you 
probably have to walk several levels, and makes scope changing a bit 
more complex, since you need to save and restore these pointers. 
Doable, certainly, and it provides a lot of power, but the places its 
useful are somewhat restricted.
-- 
                                         Dan

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Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
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