PyWart: "Python's import statement and the history of external dependencies"

[Rustom Mody]

On Sunday, November 23, 2014 12:00:15 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Rick should ask himself why virtually every single language, from compiled
> languages like Ada, C, Pascal and Java, to interpreted languages like bash,
> all use search paths instead of explicit paths.
> 
> Hint: the answer is not that every single language designer in the world is
> a moron.

In all fairness to Rick I can think of two languages -- Erlang
and Emacs-lisp.  They probably dont do what he wants
(I dont really know what he wants -- his verbiage is too much
for me to get through) however they come close.
Erlang warns about shadowing system-names
Elisp has a function -- list-load-path-shadows -- that informs about
all shadowings in the system.

In a way this makes sense because for a system to warn about shadowing is a trivial cost. For a programmer to keep track of 
which toes are being stepped on is an error-prone headache.