# What does the new "public" keyword actually do?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-does-the-new-public-keyword-actually-do/108975>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [January 18, 2024, 5:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-does-the-new-public-keyword-actually-do/108975 "2024-01-18T17:25:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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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:** [April 14, 2024, 11:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-does-the-new-public-keyword-actually-do/108975/12 "2024-04-14T23:48:39Z")

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> [@Eben60](#):
>
> [Compat.jl](https://juliahub.com/ui/Packages/General/Compat) is a rather large dependency for a no-op. Here an alternative solution:

It’s probably installed anyway on your machine, since so many packages use it. And as a runtime dependency it should be quite small — most of it is precompiled away if you have a recent Julia version.

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