[grogers]

The point is that with the named_table option, you don't need the tid of the table to access it, you can just use the name. Which makes it a global entry point. It doesn't matter if it requires messages to make it happen, it is still an implicit dependency. The same applies to named processes, etc.

Because of that you can write this code (to piggyback on the example you are responding to):

foo(Key) -> ets:member(global_state, Key).

Instead of:

foo(Tid, Key) -> ets:member(Tid, Key).

In the second case, all dependencies are explicit, in the first case, there is a dependency on the atom global_state being the name of the table you are accessing.