Re: Duplicate identifiers in a single namespace

On 10/16/2024 7:36 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:

Pascal
If you declare multiple identifiers in the same namespace
you are hit on the head. You can have nested namespaces
and there is no conflict, the inner namespace counts.

 Pascal is compiled in a single pass through the source code, so
everything must be defied before it is first used.  Unlike C/C++,
which has a multipass compiler and linker.  This was done because
Pascal was intended for teaching programming, and the load in the
university's computers was from compiling buggy student homework code
time and time again, while C was intended to replace assembly in the
Unix operating system.

I think you are misassigning effect to cause.  Wirth was
obsessed (?) with simplicity.  Even at the expense of
making things *harder* for the developer!  (shortsighted,
IMHO).
Requiring the developer to declare his *future* intention
to reference an object *could* be seen as simplifying the
process -- at least from the compiler's point of view.
But, I've no fond memories of *any* language where I was
forced to do something that the compiler could very obviously
do; how is making MORE work for me going to make things better?
I share his belief that things should be "simpler instead of
more complex".  But, that only applies to the decomposition
of a problem; the problem itself defines its complexity.