# Julep: Taking multiple dispatch,export,import,binary compilation seriously

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julep-taking-multiple-dispatch-export-import-binary-compilation-seriously/10882>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Tags:** namespaces\
**Created:** [May 14, 2018, 9:58am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julep-taking-multiple-dispatch-export-import-binary-compilation-seriously/10882 "2018-05-14T09:58:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 19

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julep-taking-multiple-dispatch-export-import-binary-compilation-seriously/10882/19 "2018-05-15T17:46:42Z")

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> [@chakravala](#):
>
> my goal was to have a “local import”, which people thought was a completely useless and silly concept.

No one thinks that namespaces are useless and silly. And, of course, Julia already supported methods like `Foo.+` that shadow (rather than extend) `Base.+`, and already supported importing them — that is what namespaces and other local scopes are all about. Your ForceImport package provides some syntactic sugar to import shadowed methods implicitly rather than explicitly, which no doubt is convenient in some cases, but does not change the dispatch or namespace semantics.

The problem comes if you want to _extend_ (not just replace) `Base.+`, but only in a local context. That is what you [initially said you wanted](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/possibility-of-local-import-statements-in-future/10611/3), and that is what the current thread tried to propose also. The difficulty arises because the whole point of extending (not replacing) a method is that one wants to extend the behavior of functions like `Base.sum` that call `+` outside the context of your local module. This is what is problematic, represents a complete upheaval of the language if it is even possible (without ending back at something equivalent to the current semantics), and is not provided by ForceImport.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julep-taking-multiple-dispatch-export-import-binary-compilation-seriously/10882)._