[Python-Dev] Re: Christmas Wishlist (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Wed Dec 17 21:59:47 EST 2003

On Tue, 2003-12-16 at 05:32, Nick Coghlan wrote:

If absolute imports were to be the only type allowed, then it would seem that the only possible location for naming conflicts is in the first element.

True.

So if I wanted to use two different third party modules, both of which have unfortunately chosen the same name for the top-level package, the only way to let them co-exist is to redo all of the imports in one or the other of them.

Whereas, if relative pathing is possible, I believe that all I have to do is push them one level down in the package heirarchy (using distinct names that I invent), and neither of them ever even knows about the other's existence. I can get at both of them unambiguously, by using my new top=level names, and neither package even knows that it is no longer starting at the top of the import heirarchy. Or is there some other solution being proposed to this problem, and I just haven't understood it?

Has this ever happened to you in practice?

It seems like the way out would be to start adopting a Java-like convention for package names. The problem with that in current Python is that you can't (easily) weave a package's contents from different locations in the file system.

-Barry

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