[Python-Dev] Python 1.6 status

[M.-A. Lemburg]

[imputil and friends]

"James C. Ahlstrom" wrote:
> 
> IMHO the current import mechanism is good for developers who must
> work on the library code in the directory tree, but a disaster
> for sysadmins who must distribute Python applications either
> internally to a number of machines or commercially.  What we
> need is a standard Python library file like a Java "Jar" file.
> Imputil can support this as 130 lines of Python.  I have also
> written one in C.  I like the imputil approach, but if we want
> to add a library importer to import.c, I volunteer to write it.
> 
> I don't want to just add more complicated and unmanageable hooks
> which people will all use different ways and just add to the
> confusion.
> 
> It is easy to install packages by just making them into a library
> file and throwing it into a directory.  So why aren't we doing it?

Perhaps we ought to rethink the strategy under a different
light: what are the real requirement we have for Python imports ?

Perhaps the outcome is only the addition of say one or two features
and those can probably easily be added to the builtin system...
then we can just forget about the whole import hook dilema
for quite a while (AFAIK, this is how we got packages into the
core -- people weren't happy with the import hook).

Well, just an idea... I have other threads to follow :-)

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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