[ocaml-platform] on the need and design of OCaml namespaces

[Christophe TROESTLER]

On Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:16:03 -0500, Yaron Minsky wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 1:04 PM, Daniel Bünzli
> <daniel.buenzli at erratique.ch> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Le vendredi, 22 février 2013 à 22:51, Xavier Clerc a écrit :
> >
> >> So, as of today, we have :
> >> - "archives" (cma / cmxa) allowing to gather modules but without
> >> naming (at the language level) the gathering ;
> >> - "packs" allowing to gather modules into a module.
> >> I regard namespaces are gathering modules into a named entity but
> >> without creating a module. Hence, it is a new beast, different from
> >> archives and packs.
> >
> > So basically a new concept is introduced because "pack" is not
> > technically satisfying. That's not the way I would like the language
> > I program in to be designed. I'd rather see the problems pack has
> > fixed which I'm sure could be done by allowing archives to be named
> > at the language level as a module.
>
> You might be right, but I think there's a deep issue here that
> shouldn't be dismissed so lightly.  The argument is that modules are
> simply too powerful to be used as the complete solution to namespace
> management.  Deciding that the only principled approach is to always
> pick the most powerful, most general purpose primitive is attractive,
> but not always sane...

That's an interesting take on this.  Would you care to elaborate on
why a module approach may not be sane?  Is it from a semantic or an
implementation point of view?