Import concerns revisited

[Dave]

Dave wrote:
> xs0 wrote:
>>
>>>> I must strongly reinforce this statement. There is nothing wrong 
>>>> with FQNs being automatically available in a program (it's how Java 
>>>> and C# work), in fact, I strongly prefer this behavior and am 
>>>> planning to implement it in D when we get the FQN import. 
>>>> (news://news.digitalmars.com:119/e8r8tt$10cf$3@digitaldaemon.com)
>>>
>>> The one problem with that may be compilation speed. I suspect that a 
>>> big part of  Java's compile-time and load-time problems are because 
>>> of all the symbol loading it has to do for a typical class path to 
>>> enable things like automatic FQN availability. At the command line, 
>>> the C# compiler actually isn't that fast either for small programs, 
>>> but in the IDE it seems fast because all this stuff is pre-loaded.
>>
>> I don't think it would affect compilation speed at all. Stuff only 
>> needs to be looked up when referenced, and if referenced, it needs to 
>> be imported anyway.
>>
> 
> I don't think that is correct for the reference compiler, because 
> Walter's 'static import' proposal still imported the entire module 
> (probably because the way the compiler works now is to 'load' an entire 
> imported module, IIRC).
> 

I should add that I hope it doesn't effect compilation speed much if any 
and that could be the case, just that I don't think your reason for that 
is not the way things work now (again, IIRC).

>> As for slowness of Java compilation, I'd say the biggest speed killer 
>> is the fact that the compiler is written in Java itself - Java is the 
>> least compiler-friendly language I know.. D is, of course, the best 
>> (imho).
>>
>>
>> xs0