[Python-Dev] pkgutil, pkg_resource and Python 3.0 name space packages

[Steven Bethard]

On Jan 6, 2008 11:34 AM, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de> wrote:
> Steven Bethard wrote:
> > Do we really want to encourage this?  Wouldn't that just introduce
> > more pyxml-like nightmares?  I've been bitten way too many times by
> > pyxml overwriting the regular xml package and causing version
> > incompatibilities.  I'd hate for this kind of thing to become common
> > practice.
>
> I like to give 3rd party software a chance to *extend* a name space
> package like xml rather then to overwrite it. As far as I understand
> your problem pyxml is overwriting the name space and claiming it for
> itself rather than extending it.

The most recent problem was that pyxml installs a different version of
pyexpat so that ``xml.parsers.pyexpat`` != ``pyexpat``. This causes
problems with mod_python:

    http://www.dscpl.com.au/wiki/ModPython/Articles/ExpatCausingApacheCrash

What concerned me was your comment:

    E.g. an user wants to overwrite Python's
    databases.sqlite with a newer version of sqlite

Maybe the situation is different here, but having someone installing a
different version of sqlite behind my back makes me nervous.

Steve
-- 
I'm not *in*-sane. Indeed, I am so far *out* of sane that you appear a
tiny blip on the distant coast of sanity.
        --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy