[Python-Dev] Alternative imports (Re: Python 3 design principles)

[Greg Ewing]

Oren Tirosh wrote:
> Writing programs that run on both 2.x and 3 may require ugly
> version-dependent tricks like:
> 
> try:
>     compile
> except NameError:
>     from sys import compile

Just had a weird thought. What if you could write

   from sys or __builtin__ import compile

which would be equivalent to

   try:
     from sys import compile
   except ImportError:
     from __builtin__ import compile

Greg