[R] a weird question about gdata:::

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 8:07 PM, Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> I prefer to think of namespaces as preventing clashes with similarly-named functions in the main workspace or in other packages that might serve a different need.
>
> Given that purpose, I don't think I would have confined that particular function behind the namespace, because any other use of that name is likely to duplicate the functionality of that particular function, and any improvements to it probably ought to be incorporated into that particular function just as much as any other implementation would deserve improvement.

The idea of hiding the the internals is that they can then be changed
with reasonable likelihood that it won't affect users.  Only those who
attempted to circumvent the barriers put in place would be affected.
For example, suppose that read.xls and the related Excel routines were
to be changed so that internally they use C instead of perl.  In that
case findPerl would not serve any purpose in the package and the
current design would allow it to be dropped.  On the other hand, if
the purpose of the package were specifically to interface to perl then
it would make sense to export it.

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