Proposal: Package aliases

[Bill Baxter]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> I think it would be convenient if packages could be aliased.
> 
> Right now this is not possible:
> 
>   alias tango.io tio; // this alias actually compiles, but...
>   import tio.Stdout;  // import using it doesn't work
> 
> (Note for the Tango non-savvy: import tango.io.Stdout *is* valid.)
> 
> So my proposal is simply to make the above code work.
> I was actually mildly surprised that it didn't.

After reading everyone's replies I think I am also somewhat ambivalent 
about this proposal.   Copy-paste is not hard with any half decent text 
editor.  And while long preambles full of redundant import statements 
may look like a waste of space, it's not particularly hard to read 
something like this:

import dwt.DWT;
import dwt.graphics.Color;
import dwt.graphics.Rectangle;
import dwt.graphics.GC;
import dwt.widgets.Display;
import dwt.widgets.Shell;
import dwt.widgets.Widget;
import dwt.widgets.Composite;
import dwt.widgets.Tree;
import dwt.widgets.TreeItem;
import dwt.widgets.Text;
import dwt.widgets.Listener;
import dwt.widgets.Event;
import dwt.layout.FillLayout;
import dwt.custom.TreeEditor;

Plus you can always make your own package subset public-import module if 
you want.

--bb