[Distutils] DRAFT PEP 396 - module version number

[Ben Finney]

Fred Drake <fdrake at acm.org> writes:

> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> > #. For modules which live inside a namespace package, the sub-package
> >   name SHOULD include the ``__version__`` attribute.  The namespace
> >   module itself SHOULD NOT include its own ``__version__`` attribute.
>
> I've no idea what you're saying here.  What's a sub-package?

Moreover, how can a “sub-package name” include an attribute? I agree
that needs to be clarified.

> If you're referring to a package like zope.testing, I'd just call that a
> package; there's nothing special about that.  I'd expect the __version__,
> if it exists, to be present in the file zope/testing/__init__.py.

Yes, but how to specify that? The ‘__init__.py’ file is a module. What's
that, then; a package module?

> Ben Finney wrote:
> > I may be fighting against the tide here; but this screams to me that the
> > PEP should not be talking at all about “version number” (except to point
> > out that they're strings, not numbers). Instead, the term should be
> > “version string” throughout.
>
> I'd rather we just say 'version' instead of 'version number' or 'version
> string'.  Natural use of natural language is... natural.  A separate
> sentence can state simply that versions are expressed as strings.

−1. A version is a state of the code base at a point in its development;
what we're talking about here are strings which act as identifiers for
versions of the code.

I would argue for “version identifier”, but that has virtually no actual
use :-)

-- 
 \               “I was sleeping the other night, alone, thanks to the |
  `\                                       exterminator.” —Emo Philips |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney