[Python-Dev] Great Renaming? What is the goal?
Moshe Zadka
Moshe Zadka <mzadka@geocities.com>
Mon, 27 Mar 2000 09:09:18 +0200 (IST)
On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Peter Funk wrote:
> If the result of this renaming initiative will be that I can't use
> import sys, os, time, re, struct, cPickle, parser
> import Tkinter; Tk=Tkinter; del Tkinter
> anymore in Python 1.x and instead I have to change this into (for example):
> form posix import time
from time import time
> from text import re
> from bin import struct
> from Python import parser
> from ui import Tkinter; ...
Yes.
> I would really really *HATE* this change!
Well, I'm sorry to hear that -- I'm waiting for this change to happen
for a long time.
> [side note:
> The 'from MODULE import ...' form is evil and I have abandoned its use
> in favor of the 'import MODULE' form in 1987 or so, as our Modula-2
> programs got bigger and bigger. With 20+ software developers working
> on a ~1,000,000 LOC of Modula-2 software system, this decision
> proofed itself well.
Well, yes. Though syntactically equivalent,
from package import module
Is the recommended way to use packages, unless there is a specific need.
> May be I didn't understand what this new subdivision of the standard
> library should achieve.
Namespace cleanup. Too many toplevel names seem evil to some of us.
> Why is a subdivision on the documentation level not sufficient?
> Why should modules be moved into packages? I don't get it.
To allow a greater number of modules to live without worrying about
namespace collision.
--
Moshe Zadka <mzadka@geocities.com>.
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com