On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 10:28:25AM -0400, Dan Sugalski wrote:
>  On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Mark A. Biggar wrote:


>  > Isn't there also the option to force load the missing class(es)

>  > recursively?

>  

>  We could, but I don't want to do that here. Just because a PMC class

>  presents functions for other PMC classes doesn't mean we necessarily want

>  to load those classes--just to have the functions available if those

>  classes are ultimately loaded. I'd prefer to leave class loading to

>  explicit "load this class" code, rather than have it implicit. Besides,

>  it's distinctly possible that many of the functions will be for classes

>  that aren't even available.


Also this could cause such a maze of automatically loaded dependencies
that using any class from parrot's supplied builtins would drag in pretty
much every class.

However, would it be possible to schedule the other classes for lazy loading
(` la perl5's AUTOLOAD), so that the functions behave as if they were
defined at the correct time, but actually pull in the needed bulky libraries
only if invoked?

Nicholas Clark