[Python-3000] New Import Behavior

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 05:17 PM 1/15/2007 +0000, Armin Ronacher wrote:
>Hossa,
>
>I like the python import system but it's limited at some point. Imagine 
>you have
>a large application with a plugin system and you want plugins to appear below
>`applicationname.plugins` (Me and the pocoo team encountered that issue some
>time ago when working on the pocoo component architecture).
>
>Imagine the following package structure::
>
>    yourapp/
>      plugins/
>        plugin1/
>          __init__.py
>          foo.py
>        plugin2.py
>
>And additional this one:
>
>    thirdparty/
>      yourapp/
>        plugins/
>          plugin3.py

There are two existing solutions for this problem: the pkgutil module 
(available since Python 2.3, and updated in 2.5 to support zipped packages 
as well), and setuptools.  Setuptools in fact has *multiple* solutions for 
this problem, and only one of them requires you to set up such elaborate 
structures in the first place.

If you will kindly re-raise the issue on the distutils-sig, I will 
elaborate further there, as this is off-topic for the Python 3000 list.