[Python-Dev] Great Renaming? What is the goal?

[Gordon McMillan]

Andrew M. Kuchling wrote:
[snip]
>   2) Right now there's no way for third-party extensions to add
>   themselves to a package in the standard library.  Once Python finds
>   foo/__init__.py, it won't look for site-packages/foo/__init__.py, so
>   if you grab, say, "crypto" as a package name in the standard library,
>   it's forever lost to third-party extensions.

That way lies madness. While I'm happy to carp at Java for 
requiring "com", "net" or whatever as a top level name, their 
intent is correct: the names grabbed by the Python standard 
packages belong to no one but the Python standard 
packages. If you *don't* do that, upgrades are an absolute 
nightmare. 

Marc-Andre grabbed "mx". If (as I rather suspect <wink>) he 
wants to remake the entire standard lib in his image, he's 
welcome to - *under* mx.

What would happen if he (and everyone else) installed 
themselves *into* my core packages, then I decided I didn't 
want his stuff? More than likely I'd have to scrub the damn 
installation and start all over again.

- Gordon