Merge pull request #12146 from mauro3/m3/scope-doc

RFC: overhaul of "Scope" manual section
JuliaLang · Feb 1, 2016 · 336f3e8 · 336f3e8
2 parents 7e7d743 + abdfc24
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diff --git a/doc/manual/functions.rst b/doc/manual/functions.rst
@@ -504,6 +504,7 @@ tuple, explicitly after a semicolon.  For example, ``plot(x, y;
 ``plot(x, y, width=2)``.  This is useful in situations where the
 keyword name is computed at runtime.
 
+.. _man-evaluation-scope-default-values:
 
 Evaluation Scope of Default Values
 ----------------------------------

diff --git a/doc/manual/modules.rst b/doc/manual/modules.rst
@@ -6,12 +6,14 @@
 
 .. index:: module, baremodule, using, import, export, importall
 
-Modules in Julia are separate global variable workspaces. They are
-delimited syntactically, inside ``module Name ... end``. Modules allow
-you to create top-level definitions without worrying about name conflicts
-when your code is used together with somebody else's. Within a module, you
-can control which names from other modules are visible (via importing),
-and specify which of your names are intended to be public (via exporting).
+Modules in Julia are separate variable workspaces, i.e. they introduce
+a new global scope. They are delimited syntactically, inside ``module
+Name ... end``. Modules allow you to create top-level definitions (aka
+global variables) without worrying about name conflicts when your code
+is used together with somebody else's. Within a module, you can
+control which names from other modules are visible (via importing),
+and specify which of your names are intended to be public (via
+exporting).
 
 The following example demonstrates the major features of modules. It is
 not meant to be run, but is shown for illustrative purposes::

diff --git a/doc/manual/noteworthy-differences.rst b/doc/manual/noteworthy-differences.rst
@@ -98,6 +98,8 @@ some noteworthy differences that may trip up Julia users accustomed to MATLAB:
   ``ans`` is not set when Julia code is run in non-interactive mode.
 - Julia's ``type``\ s do not support dynamically adding fields at runtime,
   unlike MATLAB's ``class``\ es. Instead, use a :obj:`Dict`.
+- In Julia each module has its own global scope/namespace, whereas in
+  Matlab there is just one global scope.
 
 Noteworthy differences from R
 -----------------------------