[Python-ideas] working on a PEP for the __preview__ package

[Robert Kern]

On 1/3/12 2:57 PM, Matt Joiner wrote:
> Just a suggestion:
>
> Golang uses an "exp" namespace, this would translate to a exp package
> for grouping like modules in a similar way that xml, http and
> concurrent are currently used.
> http://golang.org/pkg/exp/
>
> The name is unoffensive, and somewhat more palatable than __preview__,
> which really isn't a protocol, or a bag for special interpreter
> switches like __future__.
>
> Under this scheme, the currently proposed modules would be:
>
> exp.regex
> exp.daemon
> exp.ipaddr
>
> Rather than
>
> __preview__.regex
> __preview__.daemon
> __preview__.ipaddr

The nice thing about the dunders is that no one will make a module with a 
conflicting name. That's really the common factor behind all uses of dunders: 
reserving a name for Python's use. Whether something is a protocol or bag of 
switches doesn't really enter into it.

Like "new" and "random", "exp" or anything else that means something like 
"experimental" is going to trigger some problems when people use that name for 
*their* experimental modules.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco