newbie Q: shortcuts for long module names?

[Robert Oschler]

Let's say I import a module with a long name:

import com.long.module.name

Now every time I access a function in com.long.module.name I have to prepend
"com.long.module.name" to the member function.  Is there generally accepted
and safe way to "alias" the module name or bring it into the local namespace
so I can either omit or alias the module name with something much shorter?

thx