A mistake which almost went me mad

[Rick Johnson]

On Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 4:22:07 AM UTC-6, ast wrote:
> Hello
> 
> This has to be told
> 
> I created a file pickle.py in order to test some files
> read/write with objects and put it in a directory
> which is on my python path. 
> 
> Then the nightmare began
> 
> - Idle no longer works, window no longer opens 
> when double clicked, no errors messsages
> 
> - python -m pip list doesnt work, crash with an 
> error message related to pickle
> 
> I uninstalled python34 and reinstalled it, same problem
> I uninstalled python34 and instaled 3.5, same problem
> 
> ...
> 
> I finally understood that pickle.py is the name of the file
> containing the official pickle module.
> 
> This module is probably used by various python programs,
> IDLE, pip ...
> 
> Instead of reading official pickle, python read my file ...

This is a design flaw of the python language. If all standard library modules would have been protected from the global namespace by a single symbol -- say "stdlib" or "py" or whatever -- we would only need to avoid *ONE* symbol, instead of hundreds of them!!! Third party modules should have their own namespace as well. 

 from stdlib import re
 from stdlib.re import search
 from extlib import PIL
 from extlib.PIL import Image, ImageTk

Since those responsible for this flaw are unable, or unwilling, to fix it, the only solution for *YOU* is to (1) memorize every module name that exists in the python standard library, and also those that exist in your "site-packages" directory, or (2) hide all your personal modules behind a single symbol by utilizing a package.
 
 +mylib
   __init__.py
   pickle.py

import mylib.pickle as mypickle
mypickle.do_something()