[Python-Dev] Import redesign [LONG]

[Guido van Rossum]

> If we were to combine them, then we would need to maintain the ordering
> requirements implied by sys.path. However, this would be problematic if
> sys.path changed -- we would have to detect the situation and rebuild a
> merged dict.

No need to worry about this: just don't merge the caches.  Compared to
the hundreds of failed open() calls that are done now, it's no big
deal to do 12 failed Python dictionary lookups instead of one.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)