Re: 'with'ing and 'use'ing

[claveman@inetworld.net (Charles H. Sampson)]

Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:

> In article <1e6xw1b.crkgd5nhvbzuN%claveman@inetworld.net>,
>   claveman@inetworld.net (Charles H. Sampson) wrote:
> >      M. Rosen modestly omits that he wrote a very good paper several
> > years ago arguing in favor of the use clause.  While I was already a
> > strong use-phile before reading the paper, it clarified a number of
> > ideas that I had understood only instinctively.  I haven't read it in
> 
> I read that too. It seems to me that the whole argument hinged on the
> availability of tools to find declarations automaticly. So we are really
> talking in circles here.
> 
     Not really.  Here are his conclusions, quoted directly from the 
paper:

          We have argued here that the use clause, which allows 
     short names to be used in the usual case, improves readabil-
     ity, reliability, maintainability, and abstraction. The use of 
     expanded names has to be allowed for some special cases, but 
     not as the normal case.

          Of course, like any other feature, the use clause can be 
     abused of... and I don't know of any feature, even in Ada, 
     where this is not true . But apart from pathological cases, 
     reasonable use of the use clause provides more information to 
     the reader, and should be recommended as the usual practice.

The only place where he used the tools argument was in refuting (that's
too strong a word) the common argument that we need fully qualified 
names in order to be able to find an identifier's declaration easily.

                                Charlie

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