import concerns (was Re: Historical language survey)

[Ivan Senji]

Derek Parnell wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 14:47:34 +1000, Walter Bright
> <newshound at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> 
>> Brad Roberts wrote:
> 
>>>  How much begging would it take to try for a release or two having
>>> private symbols invisible to the importer?  It's really much more
>>> intuitive, imho.  I haven't looked at this part of the front end
>>> code, but if it's easy, feel free to make it controllable via a
>>> compiler option just for the experiment's time frame.
>>
>> The problems happen when one has:
>>
>> void foo(int x);
>> private void foo(long x);
>>
>> So the first foo is found, then overload rules apply, and the second
>> foo is selected.
> 
> No.... what would happen if something outside the module called
> foo(long) is that foo(int) would be called due to implicit casts and
> that the module's foo(long) is invisible to the caller. It wouldn't be
> called because the caller should not be able to see it.
> 

Yes, but:
If the functions were actually:

void foo(int x);
private void foo(char[] x);

and in another module foo("bar"); the right function would be called
even though it is private.
The problem: the caller does see it if there is another function with
the same name.