[Import-SIG] PEP 420: Implicit Namespace Packages

[Eric V. Smith]

On 05/04/2012 11:14 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 12:34 AM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
>>  * Explicitly leave the assignment of __file__ to the loader.
>>  * Allow loaders to not set __file__
>>  * Add an optional API to loaders, module_repr() as defined above.
> 
> I can accept that approach on one condition: the PEP 420
> implementation comes with the long-overdue migration of the definition
> of the import system semantics into the language reference.
> 
> The main sticking point preventing that in the past has been that
> nobody wanted to document all the caveats and special cases needed to
> accurately describe CPython's behaviour. For 3.3+, no such caveats are
> necessary, since Brett's importlib efforts mean that even the default
> import system follows the rules.
> 
> The proposed update will require changes to the description of the
> import semantics, anyway, so rather than making those changes directly
> in PEP 302, it would be better to document them in the language
> reference and update PEP 302 with a note to say that, for 3.3+, it is
> no longer the authoritative source.

We did discuss this yesterday at the sprint. I'm all for it, and I think
the others were, too.

I'm not keen on tying all of this to PEP 420 acceptance or rejection,
but it's not the end of the world.

Eric.