another newbie question

[MRAB]

On 14/11/2010 16:40, Roy Smith wrote:
> In article<mailman.986.1289747396.2218.python-list at python.org>,
>   David<bouncingcats at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> On 15/11/2010, otenki<scott.stephens.j at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> When I enter 'from _future_ import division' at the command
>>> line, I get the ImportError, no module named _future_.
>>
>> The module name is "__future__"
>>
>> Notice that there are 2 underscore characters before the word "future"
>> and 2 after it. This is a common convention in python.
>
> I suppose the double-underscore convention was a questionable choice,
> given how many fixed width fonts make it difficult to discern the gap
> between them.  In fact, in most fonts, it's an intentional design goal
> that they run together (think of it as a sort of recurisive ligature).
> That being said, it is what it is, and isn't changing.
>
[snip]
Guido chose double underscores because CPython is written in C and
that's what C uses. It's true that with hindsight it was a mistake...