Andrew Koenig
if I know that modules x and y overload the same function, and I want to be sure that x's case is tested first, one would think I could ensure it by writing
import x, y
But in fact I can't, because someone else may have imported y already, in which case the second import is a no-op.
So far no-one has addressed the other importing problem I mentioned, which is how to ensure that the relevant modules get imported *at all*. Currently in Python, a module gets imported because some other module needs to use a name from it. If no other module needs to do so, the module is not needed. But with generic functions, this will no longer be true. It will be possible for a module to be needed by the system as a whole, yet no other module knows that it is needed! Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+ University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a | Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc. | greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+