Re: [sv-bc] explicit package exports

>The keyword 'local' could be used for data hiding, as in 7.17.

It could, but that seems like an ugly hodgepodge.  You have some
kind of export mechanism to make imported symbols visible, but
a different mechanism borrowed from classes to control visibility
of declared symbols.

It would be more consistent if we took Cliff's suggestion of
borrowing 'extends' from classes also.  However, the current 'extends'
syntax only accounts for a package building on top of a single base
package.  If it needs to import symbols from multiple other packages,
then it needs a syntax for multiple inheritance.  And it still isn't
consistent with the existing use of import to access symbols.  Users
of classes don't use import to get access to the contents of a class.

Steven Sharp
sharp@cadence.com