[Python-Dev] Adding PEP consistent aliases for names that don't currently conform (original) (raw)

rdmurray at bitdance.com rdmurray at bitdance.com
Tue Mar 3 14:13:12 CET 2009

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 at 06:01, Ivan KrstiÄ~G wrote:

On Mar 2, 2009, at 7:08 PM, Steve Holden wrote:

> > PS.: so is datetime.datetime a builtin then? :) > > Another historic accident. Like socket.socket. :-( > A pity this stuff wasn't addressed for 3.0. Way too late now, though.

It may be too late to rename the existing accidents, but why not add consistently-named aliases (socket.Socket, datetime.DateTime, etc) and strongly encourage their use in new code?

As a user I'd be +1 on that. In fact, I might even start using 'as' in my own code for that purpose right now. I've always felt vaguely confused and disturbed whenever I imported 'datetime', but until this discussion I didn't realize why :) Thinking about it, I know I've written 'from datetime import DateTime' a number of times and then had to go back and fix my code when I tried to run it. And I'm sure that sometimes when that happens I've had to (re)read the docs (or do a 'dir') to find out why my import wasn't working.

Having said all that out loud, I think I might be stronger than a +1 on this idea. I'd be willing to help with doc and even code patches once I finish learning how to contribute properly.

--RDM

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list