[Python-Dev] RE: Please use __progress__ instead of __future__ (was Other situations like this)

[Tim Peters]

[Peter Funk]
> I believe __future__ is a bad name.  What appears today as the bright
> shining future will be the distant dusty past of tomorrow.  But the
> name of the module is not going to change anytime soon.  right?

The name of what module?

Any statement of the form

    from __future__ import shiny

becomes unnecessary as soon as shiny's future arrives, at which point the
statement can be removed.  The statement is necessary only so long as shiny
*is* in the future.  So the name is thoroughly appropriate.

> Please call it __progress__ or __history__ or even __python_history__
> or come up with some other name.

Sorry, but none of those make any sense given the intended use.  It's not a
part of Python 2.1 "history" that nested scopes won't be the default before
2.2!

>  What about __python_bloat__ ?
> <duck ;-)>.

*That* one makes some sense.

> In my experience of computing it is a really bad idea to call anything
> 'new', 'old', 'future', '2000' or some such because those names last much
> longer than you would have believed at the time the name was choosen.

The purpose of __future__ is to supply a means to try out future
incompatible extensions before they become the default.  The set of future
extensions will change from release to release, but that they *are* in the
future remains invariant even if Python goes on until universal heat death.

Given the rules I already posted, it will be very easy to write a Python
tool to identify obsolete __future__ imports and remove them (if you want).