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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RFC: Dropping Namespace
From: stas@zend.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

> I think you're confusing parsing for grokking. Namespace support is
> merely candy coating for naming conventions. Namespaces have the same

Yes, and PHP is merely a candy coating for shoving electrons around 
silicon chips. Makes as much sense. Yes, namespaces deal with naming. 
No, namespace in not just a naming convention - it is also the mechanics 
allowing to use these conventions consistently and conveniently.

> collision problems that class naming and function naming have. Only

Only if you insist on *not* using the namespaces to solve collision 
problems. For the 1001th time - you can not expect to put all names into 
global space and have the language by some magic to sort it out and go 
both ways. One name can mean only one thing, namespaces or not. 
Namespaces just allow you more convenient rules for defining what name 
means what thing.

> confined to the name of the namespace itself. This is identical to using
> a prefix when naming your classes or functions. The only thing

Only if you had auto-prefixing and aliasing with underscore prefixes. If 
you had, that would be exactly namespaces with _ as separator. I like :: 
better.

> namespaces bring to the table beyond that, is the ability to shorthand
> the class names within the namespace... as I said candy coating. If

You can say it as many times as you like, it doesn't make it true. It is 
the capability that enables one to simplify the code by avoiding 
spelling out the full name every time.

> everyone had named their classes and functions with appropriate prefixes
> then this would be a non-issue. Seriously, how were so many people so

As I said, namespaces is not only names, so it is not true.

> Hope this clears up your confusion, although I doubt you were
> particularly confused.

I wasn't confused, I was surprised that after all the explanations 
people still make such strange claims which have nothing to do with what 
namespaces really are.
-- 
Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
stas@zend.com   http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829   MSN: stas@zend.com