[Python-Dev] PEP 382: Namespace Packages

[P.J. Eby]

At 10:59 PM 4/14/2009 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>You are missing the point: When breaking up a large package that lives in
>site-packages into smaller distribution bundles, you don't need namespace
>packages at all, so the PEP doesn't apply.
>
>The way this works is by having a base distribution bundle that includes
>the needed __init__.py file and a set of extension bundles the add
>other files to the same directory (without including another copy of
>__init__.py). The extension bundles include a dependency on the base
>package to make sure that it always gets installed first.

If we're going to keep that practice, there's no point to having the 
PEP: all three methods (base+extensions, pkgutil, setuptools) all 
work just fine as they are, with no changes to importing or the stdlib.

In particular, without the feature of being able to drop that 
practice, there would be no reason for setuptools to adopt the 
PEP.  That's why I'm -1 on your proposal: it's actually inferior to 
the methods we already have today.