[FEATURE] **Partitions**

[kurtlawrence]

Partitions

partition:

one of the parts or sections of a whole.

Goals

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Partitions are designed primarily as an encapsulation boundary.
The path name actually does not contribute much to the requirement of partitions,
for a command or def found under a particular path, the path could be emulated in the name (a quirk of allowing loose syntax in identifiers).
Partitions deal primarily with privacy, with encapsulation and segregation a by-product.

Privacy Boundaries

Privacy boundaries are the main feature of partitions.
They allow items defined within a partition to scoped to within itself, or be exposed for external use.
The scoping should also be hierarchical.
Items defined in child partitions would have complete access to items defined in parent partitions.
Items are public by default, and only private if marked so.

The specific features of partitions are:

• Ability to mark items as private,
  • partitions use import and export directives for privacy
• Provide syntax for accessing partition items,
• Nesting partitions,
  • A partitions tree is used
• Privacy scopes can view all parent partitions, but not children,
• Import a set of partitions,
  • Partitions tree resolves this
• Ability to document on partitions, including root

Development Items

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• [TASK] Support nested Implementations #89
• [TASK] Partition privacy scoping #97
• [TASK] Partitions accessing syntax  #92
• [TASK] Defining partition boundaries within a file #93
• [TASK] Defining partitions across files #94
• [TASK] Importing/using partitions syntax #99
• [TASK] Gracefully handle name conflicts in partitions #98
• [TASK] partition path aliasing #100
• [TASK] Partitions Documentation #188