new DIP14: Package import path association

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Martin Nowak" <dawg at dawgfoto.de> wrote in message 
news:mailman.209.1319017359.24802.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
> On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:57:06 +0200, Jacob Carlborg <doob at me.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2011-10-18 23:49, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, October 18, 2011 00:38 Martin Nowak wrote:
>>>> http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?LanguageDevel/DIPs/DIP14
>>>
>>> I really think that you lose something when you add file paths to 
>>> imports
>>> rather than letting the module system deal with it as it does now. The 
>>> result
>>> is messier, and I really don't think that it adds anything for the 
>>> normal
>>> case. I don't think that anything should be added to the language to 
>>> support a
>>> package manager without a _really_ good reason. It should be perfectly
>>> possible to do package management without changing the language.
>>>
>>> - Jonathan M Davis
>>
>> One thing that would be nice is to be able, in the source code, somehow 
>> add additional imports paths.
>>
>> But on the other hand, if this would be possible you would need to add 
>> this to every source file that uses modules from those imports paths. Or 
>> you would need a source file that basically just list new imports paths 
>> which will be globally available.
> Which is what I finally did.
> https://github.com/dawgfoto/graphics/blob/master/src/graphics/_.d
>
> Where the importpath pragma is simply appending to the -I list, thus had 
> global scope.
> The good thing about this is that it is decentral and recursive w.r.t. the 
> imported sources.
>

I'm convinced that absolute import paths/URLs should *never* be specified in 
the code. It's the single most inflexible way to handle package management. 
It would just be enabling and encouraging very bad practice.