Don't tell, but this is getting repetitive. One more batch of repeats from me, and I'm done: + The notion that Python packages aren't self-contained now is wrong: a package module can import other modules in the package without qualification. This is good design. + Where self-containment breaks down is in going across *sub*-packages. I was surprised Guido pretended to cater to them, since Python (wisely, IMO) stayed away from sub-modules from the start. Hierarchy is a great tool for managing complexity, but it also introduces complexity of its own. And when a flat package space suffices, hierarchy introduces artificial complications. + I agree with Gordon that, if anything, the default "import" behavior is already too complicated. By the time you wade thru PYTHONPATH, and PYTHONSTARTUP, and .pth files, and people mucking with sys.path, and site config files, and symlinks under Unix, and packages mucking with their own __path__ attributes, running Python with -v is the only hope of figuring out why nothing ever works <0.6 wink>. + All this dynamicism is in support of a concept that's actually static: the structure of an installation. As Barry laments, you can't always know the structure in advance of installation, but the solution is (I believe) along the lines he suggests: invent a way to register/query the structure once & for all after it is known. + JimF and MAL's shared notion that they're the only ones making significant use of packages is myopic. Dragon also uses packages, and heavily, although products using them have not been announced and I can't talk about them yet. Anything I'm within 10 miles of doesn't use *any* import hooks, or play any other tricks on the system. Instead I urge people to write their imports as explicitly, long-windedly and straightforwardly as possible (with binding to a convenient local alias name on the following line). Do we embed sub-packages? Sure. Do modules move around in the hierarchy over time? Of course. So how do we deal with this supposed nightmare? Because all imports are relentlessly straightforward (even intra-package imports are fully qualified), and none are hiding in dynamic functions, we get into Emacs and do a global search-and-replace. Takes 30 seconds, and the new structure is plain as day to everyone reading the code. low-tech-it's-not-just-for-breakfast-anymore<wink>-ly y'rs - tim