Re: Implementation of convn

[John W. Eaton]

On 27-Mar-2008, David Bateman wrote:

| John W. Eaton wrote:
| > Would it be possible use the sharedprivate function to gain access to
| > any private directory from any other?  That would sort of defeat the
| > purpose of private directories.  Or is its restricted in some way?
| > How?
| >   
| Is that the purpose? I thought the purpose was to artificially restrict
| the use of some set of functions to another set of functions to avoid
| function namespace pollution. I don't think the purpose is to stop the
| user having access to the files in the private directories. They need
| read access to the files to use them in any case, so what is the
| difference between copying the files in the private directory to
| somewhere else, or using a sharedprivate function to obtain access to
| them? This is not a security issue, and so no I don't think it defeats
| the purpose of private directories..

I also see private functions as a way to avoid exporting to all users
some functionality that may not have a guaranteed interface.  If the
function is private, I assume that I'm free to change the way it
works, change the interface or even remove it completely without
having to worry about breaking code outside of the functions that have
access to the private function.  If everyone has access, then why
bother with private functions at all?

jwe