[Types-sig] PyDL RFC 0.02

[Greg Stein]

On Mon, 27 Dec 1999, scott wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 27, 1999 at 11:30:47AM -0800, Greg Stein wrote:
> > However: I'm still against adding a whole new namespace. I haven't seen a
> > good argument for why it is needed. Can somebody come up with a concise
> > rationale?
> 
> In my understanding of it, a separate namespace is needed for the
> generation of compile-time checking, simply because compile time
> checking can't know everything that happens in the run-time namespace.
> In other words, the static-type interpreter in the RFC needs it's own
> way of dealing with variable names.
> 
> This perspective, however, is 100% independent of the idea of a
> separate namespace at run time.  I don't see a need for a separate run
> time namespace at all, only for a modular, cleanly accessible way of
> accessing type information at run time.

Right -- a compile-time "namespace". But really: that is just an
abbreviated form of the runtime namespaces rather than a separate
compile-time namespace (so "... needed for the generation of compile-time 
checking, ..." doesn't hold).

Regardless of how the compile-time namespace is viewed, Paul was
suggesting a new runtime namespace in the RFC.

Note: the compile-time checking *does* need to know everything that
happens in the run-time namespaces. It must check the assignments and
usage of values in the namespaces.

Happy Holidays,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/