Kaz Kylheku  <kkylheku@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Maciej Katafiasz <mathr...@gmail.com> wrote:
| > And that is different from (use-package :foo) how?
| 
| It's different in that USE-PACKAGE is required to detect conflicts,
| which you have to explicitly deal with using SHADOW (resolve in favor
| of local package) or UNINTERN (resolve in favor of library being used).
+---------------

A third option [much less blunt than UNINTERN] is SHADOWING-IMPORT.

+---------------
| But USE-PACKAGE (and the :USE interface of DEFPACKAGE) are
| nevertheless blunt instruments.
+---------------

True, but often a handful of prior SHADOW or SHADOWING-IMPORT 
operations can make USE-PACKAGE bearable.

And of course both :SHADOW and :SHADOWING-IMPORT clauses exist
in DEFPACKAGE, and their sequencing with the :USE clause is both
well-defined and useful:

    http://alu.org/HyperSpec/Body/mac_defpackage.html
    Macro DEFPACKAGE
    ...
    The order in which the options appear in a DEFPACKAGE form is
    irrelevant. The order in which they are executed is as follows:

    1. :shadow and :shadowing-import-from.
    2. :use.
    3. :import-from and :intern.
    4. :export.

    SHADOWs are established first, since they might be necessary to
    block spurious name conflicts when the :USE option is processed.
    The :USE option is executed next so that :INTERN and :EXPORT
    options can refer to normally inherited symbols. The :EXPORT
    option is executed last so that it can refer to symbols created
    by any of the other options; in particular, shadowing symbols
    and imported symbols can be made external.

I have found that careful use of the :SHADOW and :SHADOWING-IMPORT
clauses can significantly improve the usability of the :USE clause.

+---------------
| If you care about precisely what is accessible where, you have to
| maintain lists, no matter what namespace system you are using.
| 
| In the case of packages, you'd be maintaining import lists rather
| than export lists. I.e. lists of symbols which are arguments to
| :IMPORT-FROM or :SHADOWING-IMPORT-FROM in a DEFPACKAGE.
+---------------

Exactly. But depending upon the packages you want to inherit from, the
lists you will need of :SHADOW plus :SHADOWING-IMPORT-FROM symbols plus
packages :USE'd might (or might not) be a smaller maintainance burden
than the lists you's need for only :IMPORT-FROM or :SHADOWING-IMPORT-FROM
without any :USE.


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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