When I wrote that it was only half a joke. In Ovid's pseudo-perl examples above, he was just using
use WhenNeeded 'Foo';
but showed the Java syntax import foo.*; as an example of his inspiration.
It struck me that as part of his pseudo-code involved using Find::File, that there might be some merit in using perl's globing behaviour to extend the Javan syntax and select subsets of a namespace. I then tried to look for a good example where using it would allow the selection of a realistic subset of an existing namespace, but couldn't find anything where more than foo::* (or I guess on non-dosish systems that would more properly be Foo::.*) would likely be used.
At that point I realised that if the only common usage would be to select everything below a given point in the hierachy, then the * or .* becomes redundant and Ovid's original syntax would probably make more sense.
I guess if the module was available, it might encourage authors to break up some of their bigger modules into smaller chunks spread across a deeper hierachy than is the norm? Which might lighten the load of some of them.
I could perhaps see use CGI; being broken up so that you could do
use WhenNeeded
'CGI::HTML3::Table*',
'CGI::Netscape::*'
;
And maybe
use WhenNeeded 'Date::Manip::EN::*';
So, no. I don't think that any resemblance to Javan syntax is really a problem, I just can't see a need for it currently, but that may mean I am limiting my imagination.
Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller
If I understand your problem, I can solve it! Of course, the same can be said for you.
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