> By one letter!
Yes, by one letter. Out of 6. "using" is 16% shorter than "import". And it uses better keyboard alternation (the first 4 letters of `import` are on the right side of a qwerty keyboard, the last 2 on the other, for using the only "i" and "n" are consecutive letters on the same half of the keyboard).
So "using" is 1. introduced first 2. the primarily documented import mechanism 3. significantly shorter and 4. significantly more comfortable to type.
If Julia's community doesn't want people to use it everywhere, they're doing a very, very good job of fucking with and victimising their users by way over-incentivising the use of `using` over `import`.
> And in the right direction: for trying things out interactively, `using ThePackage` and then having everything available is great.
And for writing maintainable code it's terrible, despite being by far the easiest and most convenient solution.
ChrisRackauckas complains that people use `using` over `import`, literally everything in the language and documentation pushes them towards it.
Putting the convenience of interactive sessions way, way over that of proper programs does not seem like "the right direction" to me, especially not when people then jump on their high horses and chide users for doing what the language unambiguously pushes them towards.
> But serving both of these needs seems like a valid design goal.
Python does that just fine: it provides convenience for interactive use without pushing users towards the least maintainable and desirable option.