[Distutils] DRAFT PEP 396 - module version number

[Fred Drake]

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> #. For modules which live inside a namespace package, the sub-package
>   name SHOULD include the ``__version__`` attribute.  The namespace
>   module itself SHOULD NOT include its own ``__version__`` attribute.

I've no idea what you're saying here.  What's a sub-package?

If you're referring to a package like zope.testing, I'd just call that a
package; there's nothing special about that.  I'd expect the __version__,
if it exists, to be present in the file zope/testing/__init__.py.

An namespace package, like zope or zc, should not have a __version__.

Ben Finney wrote:
> I may be fighting against the tide here; but this screams to me that the
> PEP should not be talking at all about “version number” (except to point
> out that they're strings, not numbers). Instead, the term should be
> “version string” throughout.

I'd rather we just say 'version' instead of 'version number' or 'version
string'.  Natural use of natural language is... natural.  A separate
sentence can state simply that versions are expressed as strings.


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.    <fdrake at acm.org>
"Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities."
   --Frank Lloyd Wright