Partially qualified names

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Saturday, June 01, 2013 23:13:36 Peter Alexander wrote:
> Suppose I have some long symbol name:
> 
> foo.bar.baz.quux;
> 
> I can refer to it as simply quux if the name is unambiguous, but
> when there is an ambiguity I have to refer to it by its full
> name, foo.bar.baz.quux, which can be frustrating for long names.
> 
> It would be nice if I could refer to it by partially qualifying
> the name, e.g. baz.quux or bar.baz.quux. Of course, the partial
> qualification itself would need to be unambiguous.
> 
> Is there any reason this couldn't be done, or should I file an
> enhancement request?

Even if the compiler could figure it out, I'd be very afraid that the fact that 
the programmer can no longer look at baz.quux and know that baz was a base 
package would cause problems. It would also create yet another way for code to 
be broken when new symbols are added.

Really, this is one of the things that aliases are for.

- Jonathan M Davis