From: Nathaniel Talbott <nathaniel@...>
Date: 2003-08-13T08:03:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Nested class/module namespace

Kent Dahl [mailto:kentda+news@stud.ntnu.no] wrote:

> I can't help thinking that it might be a feature, not a bug.
> 
> Class and module provide namespaces. In the old style, we
> could not help but opening all the layers of modules (and
> thusly their namespaces) when defining a class within them.
> 
> With the new style, we get a cleaner, neater and minimalistic
> namespace, where we can include those namespaces we want.
> (With the exception of nested classes, but a work-around for
> that only requires a little refactoring).
> 
> So unless "class M::C" and friends is just meant to be 
> syntactic sugar, (phoey!) this might help us create cleaner
> code, IMHO. I wouldn't write it off as a bug just yet.

I don't understand the benefit... when I use classes and modules for
namespacing, I group related things under the same namespace, and it's great
for those related things to be able to access one another without fully
qualifying names. For instance:

table.rb:

  module SE
    class Server
      module DB
        class Table
          ...
        end
      end
    end
  end

tc_table.rb:

  module SE
    class Server
      module DB
        class TC_Table < Test::Unit::TestCase
          def test_stuff
            t = Class::new(Table) do # Table is visible in the DB namespace
              ...
            end
            ...
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end

I'd love to change this to:

table.rb:

  class SE::Server::DB::Table
    ...
  end

tc_table.rb

  class SE::Server::DB::TC_Table < Test::Unit::TestCase
    def test_stuff
      t = Class::new(Table) do # Can't find Table!
        ...
      end
    end
  end

In many cases this form of nesting will create more typing for me than the
normal form of nesting! OTOH, I haven't ever had trouble with too much
namespace exposure except with top-level classes (like Queue) that cause
confusion when I forget to require something and they magically get used
instead of my classes without an (immediate) error. But this new form
doesn't solve that problem, so I don't see any benefit in how it behaves.

Can you give an example where this is beneficial?

Thanks,


Nathaniel

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