This is actually how frameworks like Zend require_once the file which DOES contain the class definition (and thus the ugly class names i.e. Zend_Db_Table_Row et

This is actually how frameworks like Zend require_once the file which DOES contain the class definition (and thus the ugly class names i.e. Zend_Db_Table_Row etc. that correspond to the actual directory structure). With proper namespaces most of this should go away.