Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/272

stu said: Suggestions from Volkan Yazici:

Hi,

I saw your "load/ns/require/use overhaul" ticket[1] and would like to
ask for a few extra overhaulings. I have a project called retop, and
here is its file hiearachy:

tr/edu/bilkent/cs/retop.clj
tr/edu/bilkent/cs/retop/km.clj
tr/edu/bilkent/cs/retop/graph.clj
tr/edu/bilkent/cs/retop/main.clj
tr/edu/bilkent/cs/retop/util.clj

In retop.clj, I have below ns definition.

(ns tr.edu.bilkent.cs.retop
(:gen-class)
(:import
(com.sun.jna
Function
Pointer)
(com.sun.jna.ptr
IntByReference)
(tr.edu.bilkent.cs.patoh
HyperGraph
HyperGraphException
Parititoning
ParititoningParameters))
(:load
"retop/util"
"retop/km"
"retop/graph"
"retop/main"))

And in every .clj file in retop/ directory I have below in-ns in the
very first line.

(in-ns 'tr.edu.bilkent.cs.retop)

The problems with the ns decleration are:

1) Most of the :import's in retop.clj only belong to a single .clj file.
For instance,

(tr.edu.bilkent.cs.patoh
HyperGraph
HyperGraphException
Parititoning
ParititoningParameters)

imports are only used by graph.clj. Yep, I can add an (import ...)
line just after the (in-ns ...), but wouldn't it be better if I can
specify that in (in-ns ...) form?

2) See (:load ...) clause in (ns ...) form. There are lots of
unnecessary directory prefixes. I'd be prefer something ala Common
Lisp's defpackage:

(:load
"packages" ; packages.clj
("retop"
"util" ; retop/util.clj
"km" ; retop/km.clj
"graph" ; retop/graph.clj
("graph"
"foo" ; retop/graph/foo.clj
"bar) ; retop/graph/bar.clj
"main")) ; retop/main.clj

Also, being able to use wildcards would be awesome.

3) There are inconsistencies between macros and functions. For instance,
consider:

(ns foo.bar.baz (:use mov))
(in-ns 'foo.bar.baz)
(use 'mov)

I'd like to get rid of quotations in both cases.

I'm not sure if I'm using the right tools and doing the right approach
for such a project. But if you agree with the above overhauling
requirements, I'd like to see them appear in the same assembla ticket as
well.

stuart.sierra said: My requests:

1. If writing macros that do not evaluate their arguments, provide function versions that do evaluate their arguments.

2. Do not support prefix lists for loading Clojure namespaces. It's hard to parse with external tools.

3. Do not conflate importing Java classes with loading Clojure namespaces. They are fundamentally different operations with different semantics.

I have implemented some ideas in a macro called "need" at http://github.com/stuartsierra/need

Further requests:

Permit tools to read the "ns" declaration and statically determine the dependencies of a namespace, without evaluating any code.

Permit tools to read the "ns" declaration and statically determine the dependencies of a namespace, without evaluating any code.

This would be great for building OSGi bundles where Bnd is currently not much help.