[Python-Dev] pkgutil, pkg_resource and Python 3.0 name space packages

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 07:34 PM 1/6/2008 +0100, Christian Heimes wrote:
>Steven Bethard wrote:
> > Do we really want to encourage this?  Wouldn't that just introduce
> > more pyxml-like nightmares?  I've been bitten way too many times by
> > pyxml overwriting the regular xml package and causing version
> > incompatibilities.  I'd hate for this kind of thing to become common
> > practice.
>
>I like to give 3rd party software a chance to *extend* a name space
>package like xml rather then to overwrite it. As far as I understand
>your problem pyxml is overwriting the name space and claiming it for
>itself rather than extending it.

Indeed.  It should also be noted that namespace packages are actually 
a very mature technology at this point.  Before setuptools, pkgutil 
already supported them, from the time of 2.3's release.