[Python-ideas] My objections to implicit package directories

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 21 Mar, 2012, at 4:13, Chris Rebert wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
>> On 3/20/2012 11:49 AM, Ronald Oussoren wrote:
>>> On 13 Mar, 2012, at 9:15, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>>>> I think it comes down to this: I really, really, really hate
>>>> directories with a suffix. I'd like to point out that the suffix
>>>> is also introducing a backwards incompatibility: everybody will
>>>> have to teach their tools, IDEs, and brains about .pyp
>>>> directories,
>>> 
>>> Directories with a suffix have the advantage that you could teach
>>> GUIs to treat them differently, filemanagers could for example show a
>>> ".pyp" directory as a folder with a python logo just like ".py"
>>> files are shown as documents with a python logo.
>>> 
>>> With the implicit approach it is much harder to recognize python
>>> packages as such without detailed knowledge about the import
>>> algorithm and python search path.
>> 
>> Package directories are files and can be imported to make modules. I think
>> it would have been nice to use .pyp from the beginning. It would make Python
>> easier to learn. Also, 'import x' would mean simply mean "Search sys.path
>> directories for a file named 'x.py*', with no need for either the importer
>> (or human reader) to look within directories for the magic __init__.py file.
>> Sorting a directory listing by extension would sort all packages together.
> 
> Your file manager views directories as having filename extensions?
> Mine sure doesn't.

Yes. On what platform are you? On unixy platforms filename extensions are just a naming convention that can just as easily be used with directories.

Ronald