[Python-3000] Changing the import machinery

[Guido van Rossum]

On 4/20/06, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
>
> > On 4/20/06, in python-dev, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
> > > I was hoping that for Python 3.0, we could get around to unkludge the
> > > sys.path/meta_path/path_hooks/path_importer_cache big ball of hacks,
> > > possibly by replacing sys.path with something a bit more intelligent than
> > > a plain list.
> >
> > That's an excellent idea. Are there any volunteers here to help out?
> > Even just listing specific use cases / scenarios that are currently
> > difficult to solve right would be tremendously helpful. (I think that
> > Phillip's and others' experience with setuptools might be very
> > useful.)
>
> how far would a plain
>
>     the path can contain either directory names or import handlers
>
> modification take us ?  (where import handlers are duck-typed objects
> with an as-small-as-possible interface, and the handler for builtins and
> frozen objects are included in the list).

Probably all the way. PEP 302's rationale discusses some problems that
explain why this wasn't done in 2.x; perhaps those concerns can be
swept in 3.0.

> being able to track modifications to sys.path would also be useful, I think.
> tracking *modifications* are of course not much of a problem, but what
> about
>
>     sys.path = list(stuff)
>
> time to add support for module properties, perhaps ?

Or make the module a different class instance; people already do that.

--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)