[Python-Dev] Autoloading? (Making Queue.Queue easier to use)

[Fredrik Lundh]

Antoine Pitrou wrote:

> > unfortunately, this standard seem to result in generic "spamtools" modules
> > into which people throw everything that's even remotely related to "spam",
> > followed by complaints about bloat and performance from users, followed by
> > various more or less stupid attempts to implement lazy loading of hidden in-
> > ternal modules, followed by more complaints from users who no longer has
> > a clear view of what's really going on in there...
>
> BTW, what's the performance problem in importing unnecessary stuff
> (assuming pyc files are already generated) ?

larger modules can easily take 0.1-0.2 seconds to import (at least if they
use enough external dependencies).  that may not be a lot of time in itself,
but it can result in several seconds extra startup time for a larger program.

importing unneeded modules also add to the process size, of course.  you
don't need to import too many modules to gobble up a couple of megabytes...

</F>