PHP 5.3 introduces http://www.php.net/namespaces[namespaces] to the language. Use of this mechanism should be preferred to ``++include++`` or ``++include_once++`` or ``++require++`` or ``++require_once++`` because it solves two common problems:
* it avoids name collisions
* it provides the ability to create alias which improve readability of the code
Starting from its version 8, Drupal is relying on namespaces to be compliant with https://github.com/php-fig/fig-standards/blob/master/accepted/PSR-4-autoloader.md[PSR-4 standard]. Drupal's modules should be compliant with PSR-4 standard and therefore should no longer rely on ``++include++`` or ``++include_once++`` or ``++require++`` or ``++require_once++`` functions.
