Modules vs Namespaces

[ghost]

Should Adept support the concept of Modules like what of Modula-3? In Delphi, we also have Units. In Go, they also have Packages. I know Adept already has support for Namespaces, though. But Adept's Namespaces use \. Modules, if will ever be added, will use the dot like in Modula-3, Delphi, and Go.

https://github.com/AdeptLanguage/Adept/wiki/Namespaces

Disclaimer: I admit I know very few about Adept's Namespaces. I'm not even sure if they are the same thing as Modules.

[IsaacShelton]

Adept 2.x's namespaces are not really namespaces unfortunately, due to issues that arose from the design of the compiler. They are more just glorified prefixes like in C, just with some syntactic sugar to make it easier in some places.

The namespace/module system needs to be improved and I am still designing how they should work in Adept 3.x.

I don't know a whole lot about Delphi or Modula-3 modules, but the plan is proper modules similar to the semantics of Python.

Nothing about modules is finalized yet though, there are a few things which I want the module system to be capable of including:

• Composable import syntax, e.g. import a::{self, b, c, d::e, f::{g, h, i}, j, k::*, l::m} (if import statements are necessary)
• Smart imports, i.e. you shouldn't be required to manually specify every single import, or at the very least there should be an LSP capable of helping though the imports process
• Re-exportability, i.e. it should have the ability to re-export symbols under different namespaces/names
• Re-importability, i.e. it should be possible to import symbols under different names for the context that they're imported into
• Low boilerplate, i.e. it shouldn't take 20 lines of code per file/module
• Low friction, i.e. the module system should try to stay out of your way as much as possible while still doing its job and maintaining strong guarantees
• Granular accessibility, i.e. symbols can be made public or private without making the entire container public or private
• Dangerous escape hatch, i.e. the ability to ignore all the rules and access normally unaccessible symbols with special syntax or privileges for when you don't care about what the library author says about accessibility. This is a really bad thing to do, but sometimes you just don't care. The library author is of course free to change it underneath you and it is your responsibility when it breaks.

I have a few ideas to try to satisfy the above as well as possible, but what each would entail still needs some additional research