re-importing modules

[John Nagle]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> I'd hate for reload to disappear, it is great for interactive
> development/debugging, at least under some circumstances. (If you have
> complex and tangled class hierarchies, it might not be powerful enough.)
> 
> As for the semantics being awful, I disagree. reload() does exactly
> what it claims to do, no more, no less.

     It's more complicated than that.  See

       http://arcknowledge.com/lang.jython.user/2006-01/msg00017.html

Exactly what reloading should do is still an open question for some of
the hard cases.

     "reload" as a debug facility is fine.
Trouble comes from production programs which use it as a
reinitialization facility.

     Reloading a module with multiple threads running gets
complicated.  It works in CPython because CPython doesn't have
real concurrency.  Insisting that it work like CPython implies
an inefficient locking model.

					John Nagle