[python-committers] do we still believe explicit relative imports are bad as PEP 8 claims?

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Raymond Hettinger
<raymond.hettinger at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 18, 2011, at 12:36 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
>
>> It says they are "highly discouraged" because "absolute imports are
>> more portable and usually more readable", but now that people have had
>> a chance to use explicit relative imports, do people still believe
>> this? I mean if we truly believed this then why did we add the syntax?
>> I know I have used it and love it, let alone that I don't buy the
>> portability argument.
>
> I still find relative imports to be a bit jarring and don't like the
> implied tight coupling of modules.   The nest of relative imports
> in unittest is a good example of something that causes a mental
> hiccup when I read it and it seems like an anti-pattern.

The particular pattern employed by unittest would be a pseudo-module
(i.e. a package that tries to present itself as really just a module)
rather than explicit relative imports in general, though.

I'm personally fine with PEP 8 continuing to advocate absolute
imports. Explicit relative imports make certain kinds of code easier
to write, but they shouldn't be the default choice for a new project.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia