[Python-Dev] New and Improved Import Hooks (original) (raw)

Just van Rossum just@letterror.com
Tue, 3 Dec 2002 11:37:51 +0100

Martin v. L=F6wis wrote:

> And then it still does many things that "aren't clearly needed". =20 Yes, but these are mostly reorganizations of stuff, eg. pieces of a function moved into functions of their own. This is, in general, a good thing, as it improves readability of the resulting code (not of the patch, though).

Besides bloat, my main objection to the patch is that it refactors import= .c in a way that's not general enough and actually make import.c more complex tha= n needed. This is IMO a bad thing.

> The complexity is inherent because there's no import hook mechanism > that's even remotely usable from C. My patch changes that. =20 I would expect that the complexity is inherent in "we implement our own file system" (i.e. zipfiles). So I don't trust promises that a great ne= w framework will make things simpler, unless proven wrong, by seeing actual things that become actually simpler.

True. See below.

> No it doesn't. It just means that a little more work is needed. =20 The current patch was sitting on SF for almost a year, and nobody even looked at it. How many more years do you want to wait for somebody finding time for "a little more work"?

It's been sitting there for so long because it's such a hairy patch. I'= ve just started writing a new madule called "zipimport" which will show what I me= an. The rest of today will be very busy here, so you might have to wait until t= omorrow for working code.

Just