Ten Essential Development Practices

[Michael Hoffman]

Aahz wrote:

>>One of these days I'm going to figure out how to embody "Namespaces are 
>>one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" Then I shall be 
>>enlightened.
> 
> What don't you understand about it?  (This is a serious question -- I
> can think of several answers to give you, but want to know what focus is
> needed first.)

I wasn't expecting a serious answer to this, but here goes.

First, I wasn't a Python user when namespaces were introduced. It's hard 
for me to even imagine Python without namespaces. Did imported modules 
just go into the same namespace as everything else? Yuck. It's too bad 
this happened before there were PEPs so I could understand the design 
and what came before.

Is it the fact that Python is unimaginable without namespaces that makes 
them such a honking great idea? Aren't they somewhat of an obvious idea? 
Several other languages have them.

Was the implementation of namespaces easy or hard to explain?

I'd love to do more honking great ideas, but I'm not even sure what the 
Dutch ideal of a honking great idea is in the first place.
-- 
Michael Hoffman