Import concerns revisited

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Walter Bright wrote:

> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>> 
>>> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
>>>> Well, who did ever say that was a good idea, everything public by
>>>> default? ;)
>>> I did <g>.
>> 
>> Right :) I don't agree.
> 
> Let me explain why I think default public is a good idea.
> 
> It reduces clutter in sample, example, and quick programs. Access
> security is an advanced feature, one that's invaluable for a complex
> project, but is just in the way for smaller ones.
> 
> I don't mind at all when crafting a carefully designed, reusable module
> that 'private' needs to be explicit. It helps document the intention,
> and lends the impression that the designer did put some thought into the
> code.
> 
> But when writing illustrative sample code, I feel that having to add in
> 'public's is distracting from the point (unless, of course, the point is
> about how access control works!). I see this a lot in sample C++ code,
> and it is distracting, to me anyway.
> 
> And it's just plain irritating when writing smaller programs where
> access control is quite irrelevant.

And it here I think you miss the point. When D as a language rather help in
writing small example programs, instead of making it easy and safe to write
large applications and libraries, how is then D supposed to take the
ultimate step? D has so much potential for writing large, powerful
applications and libraries, and D continously shoots it down. Illustrative
code should show the actual features making the language good to use in
larger projects (once they are there, they will contain much larger bodies
of code than all the smaller ones combined), not be a goal for the language
itself.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource & #D: larsivi