PEP: possibility of inline using of a symbol instead of "import"

[Alan Meyer]

On 1/6/2011 10:28 AM, dmitrey wrote:
 > hi all,
 > I have th PEP (I'm not sure something like that hadn't been proposed
 > although):
 > very often in a Python file header the following lines are present,
 > like:
 > from MyModule1 import myFunc1
 > import MyModule2 as mm2
 > from MyModule3 import myFunc3 as mf3
 > etc
...

Personally, I always do all of my imports at the top of every
program I write and like it when others do the same.  The reason
is that, in a single glance, I can see all of the dependencies of
the program.

For similar reasons of explicit clarity I prefer this construct:

     import re
     pat = re.compile(...)

To something like this one:

     from re import compile as cp
     pat = cp(...)

The only benefit I can see from your proposal is that it cuts
down slightly on the number of characters in a program, but I
think it does so at the cost of reducing explicit clarity and
increasing the learning burden for a programmer who will have to
learn two techniques (if only so she can read other people's
code) instead of one.

Also, there are only 95 printable ASCII characters most of which
are already dedicated to other uses (e.g., for use in variable
names.)  I would hate to reserve one to do something that can be
done equally well without reserving a character.

I applaud your interest in improving the language but I don't
think the benefit justifies the cost in this case.

     Alan