PyWart: Module access syntax

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:46:36 -0800, Rick Johnson wrote:

> On Friday, January 11, 2013 10:40:36 PM UTC-6, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Rick Johnson
> 
>> > *The problem:*
>> > ... is readability. The current dot syntax used ubiquitously in paths
>> > is not conveying the proper information to the reader, and in-fact
>> > obfuscating the code.
>> 
>> Please explain how this is a problem.
> 
> 
> What is this importing?
> 
>    "import lib.gui.simpledialog"
>  
> ...is that the "simpledialog module" or "SimpleDialog object"? 

It has to be the first, because:

- you can't import members of modules directly using dot syntax

  ("import math.cos" will fail)

- and it can't be SimpleDialog, because Python is case-sensitive and you 
wrote simpledialog.


But ignoring the import, and just looking at the dotted name:

lib.gui.simpledialog

who cares what simpledialog happens to be? So long as you know the 
expected interface (say, "it's a callable object that takes three 
arguments"), you can use it the same way whether it is a function, a 
method, a class or something else. The implementation could change, and 
you need not care.

If you actually do care what the type of simpledialog is, you can find 
out easily:

type(lib.gui.simpledialog)



-- 
Steven