[IPython-dev] IPython module and package reorganization

[Fernando Perez]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Brian Granger<ellisonbg.net at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would love to be able to type "ipython" rather than "IPython" all
> the time so I am for this change.  What do others think?  Are there
> problems with this that I am missing?

I personally would *love* to do this now.  I remember pulling back
from this change a long time ago when we realized the problem on
OSX/Windows because of name clashes.

One aspect of this change does worry me though: there's a LOT of code
in the wild that embeds ipython in all manner of tools, and we'd be
breaking all of that with this change.  While we're all on board with
doing backwards-incompatible changes, it would be nice to keep *some*
level of backwards compatibility, even if done with shim layers.  We
could provide a few shims so embedding code like

from IPython.Shell import IPShellEmbed

continues to work for one or two more releases, with proper
DeprecationWarnings raised.  But if we rename IPython -> ipython, I
don't see a way to expose any backwards compatibility mechanism.  And
I think all changes of this kind should strive for a fair balance
between necessary evolution and limiting the damage for existing
users: there's no absolute right answer here, just a matter of finding
an acceptable compromise.

Cheers,

f