[Python-Dev] python-dev sprint at PyCon

[Guido van Rossum]

On 11/1/05, Phillip J. Eby <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote:
> At 10:22 AM 11/1/2005 -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> >* PEP 328 - absolute/relative import
>
> I assume that references to 2.4 in that PEP should be changed to 2.5, and
> so on.

For the part that hasn't been implemented yet, yes.

> It also appears to me that the PEP doesn't record the issue brought up by
> some people about the current absolute/relative ambiguity being useful for
> packaging purposes.  i.e., being able to nest third-party packages such
> that they end up seeing their dependencies, even though they're not
> installed at the "root" package level.
>
> For example, I have a package that needs Python 2.4's version of pyexpat,
> and I need it to run in 2.3, but I can't really overwrite the 2.3 pyexpat,
> so I just build a backported pyexpat and drop it in the package, so that
> the code importing it just ends up with the right thing.
>
> Of course, that specific example is okay since 2.3 isn't going to somehow
> grow absolute importing.  :)  But I think people brought up other examples
> besides that, it's just the one that I personally know I've done.

I guess this ought to be recorded. :-(

The issue has been beaten to death and my position remains firm:
rather than playing namespace games, consistent renaming is the right
thing to do here. This becomes a trivial source edit, which beats the
problems of debugging things when it doesn't work out as expected
(which is very common due to the endless subtleties of loading
multiple versions of the same code).

--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)