[Import-SIG] PEP 420: Implicit Namespace Packages

[Paul Moore]

On 4 May 2012 16:14, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> 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.

That would be a *very* good idea. Whether PEP 420 should be held
hostage to this, I don't know, but I think it should be targeted as a
key item for 3.3. Just having a reference to what the language
actually guarantees would be immensely useful. I did actually try to
do this once, but my head exploded :-) (I'd be willing to help out
with it, but I don't know where it would fit in the docs - could
anyone suggest a basic location and structure, and I could try to
write some words to go into it?)

On a somewhat related note, does anyone know how well oddities like
jython's ability to import Java classes (and IronPython for .Net
classes) fit any such rules?

Paul.