Re: Name spaces in programming languages

[Ludovic Courtès]

"Alfred M\. Szmidt" <address@hidden> writes:

> Huh? Most lisp derivatives and scheme implementations have globally
> shared mutable namespaces, there are hacks (as you note) to confie
> things a bit, but that usually involves running a new repl, or telling
> top-repl to ignore things.  But all in all, it is still a globally
> shared mutable namespace.  If it wasn't, it would be a pita to use
> lisp.

Nope.  In Guile, there is no such thing as a globally shared mutable
name space: each module has its own set of bindings.  There _are_
bindings that are usually shared across modules, namely "core bindings".

In any case, the whole point of functional languages is to consistently
avoid relying on side-effects.  Mutability is one such side-effect.
Depending on bindings defined in a globally accessible, mutable name
space is another one.

Thanks,
Ludovic.