[Python-ideas] Module name [was Re: Pre-PEP: adding a statistics module to Python]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On 07/08/13 00:33, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> On 7 August 2013 00:23, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>> Le Tue, 06 Aug 2013 16:19:18 +0200,
>> "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> a écrit :
[...]
>>> Apart from avoiding name clashes, I think adding a bit of extra
>>> context by means of placing the module into package also helps people
>>> trying to determine the meaning of the module.
>>
>> Well, "statistics" sounds clear enough to me :-)
>> (like "logging" or "unittest")
>
> Yeah, Steven's own stats module on PyPI is the main name clash we need
> to avoid, and "statistics" handles that nicely. The other nice thing
> about using the top level name is that converting math to a package
> would be a pain, so +1 for the simple option :)


On the other hand, moving math to a package would lower the barrier to adding new functions to it in the future.

Wouldn't these two steps be sufficient to make math a package?

1. Move math.cpython-34.so to _math.cpython-34.so

2. Add math/__init__.py containing a single line "from _math import *"


As far as the name goes, to cut back on bike-shedding, I'm going to rule out any names other than these three:

1) statistics
2) statslib
3) math.stats


Top-level "stats" is ruled out because of possibility of confusion with "stat".

My preference is math.stats because it allows the expansion of math. Others may consider that a disadvantage.

Thoughts?




-- 
Steven