[Python-Dev] Breaking undocumented API

[Tres Seaver]

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On 11/08/2010 06:26 PM, Bobby Impollonia wrote:

> This does hurt because anyone who was relying on "import *" to get a
> name which is now omitted from __all__ is going to upgrade and find
> their program failing with NameErrors. This is a backwards compatible
> change and shouldn't happen without a deprecation warning first.

Outside an interactive prompt, anyone using "from foo import *" has set
themselves and their users up to lose anyway.

That syntax is the single worst misfeature in all of Python.  It impairs
readability and discoverability for *no* benefit beyond one-time typing
convenience.  Module writers who compound the error by expecting to be
imported this way, thereby bogarting the global namespace for their own
purposes, should be fish-slapped. ;)


Tres.
- -- 
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Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
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