# Another possible solution to the global scope debacle

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/another-possible-solution-to-the-global-scope-debacle/15894>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [October 4, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/another-possible-solution-to-the-global-scope-debacle/15894 "2018-10-04T18:14:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 176

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**Author:** ![NiclasMattsson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/niclasmattsson/32/21988_2.png) [@NiclasMattsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/NiclasMattsson)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/another-possible-solution-to-the-global-scope-debacle/15894/176 "2018-10-07T13:50:22Z")

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> [@leiteiro](#):
>
> Frankly, I don’t think the discussion is about language design, but about **how to accommodate instructors so that they don’t have to change their habits.**

> [@Stating my opininon](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/stating-my-opininon/15942/2):
>
> The “mistake” actually consisted of a positive change from a software engineering perspective. The behavior now is much more reliable in large source files and projects. Then it turned out that **some people really wanted to do lecture examples with certain 3-line loops in the REPL, and that became less convenient to the tune of _adding a single word_ to the code.**

I am one of these instructors who is arguing for a change in scoping behavior. For the record:

- For **my own personal use** of Julia, I really like the 1.0 scoping rules. They’re simple and consistent, and it’s easy to add a `global` keyword for interactive snippets in the REPL. I’m still a bit on the fence, but I may even prefer the 1.0 system over the proposal in this thread (again, for my own use).
- For **my teaching** , 1.0 scoping requires a bit of extra effort but is no great hardship. I can choose between taking a small detour to explain scoping up front, or I can punt and have the students use SoftGlobalScope.jl in the first sessions and explain why later.
- My **sole concern** in pushing this is that I think 1.0 scoping is too unintuitive for unchaperoned beginners, and I think it will significantly hurt their inital impression of the language and may even slow adoption rate long term. [Stefan also seems to be coming around to this view](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/another-possible-solution-to-the-global-scope-debacle/15894/160). I’m arguing for a change simply because I think my role as a teacher gives me a canary-in-a-coal-mine perspective that much more experienced Julia coders than I may lack.

Basically, please don’t ~~kill the messenger~~ misunderstand the message. We teachers are not griping about what we have to teach, we’re (or rather many of use are) worried about the confusion of our students.  
[EDIT: clarified last two sentences, thanks Tamas.]

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