On 2/2/2010 2:43 PM, kj wrote:
In<mailman.1795.1265135424.28905.python-l...@python.org> Terry
Reedy<tjre...@udel.edu> writes:
On 2/2/2010 9:13 AM, kj wrote:
As for fixing it, unfortunately it's not quite so simple to fix without
breaking backwards-compatibility. The opportunity to do so for Python 3.0
was missed.
This last point is to me the most befuddling of all. Does anyone
know why this opportunity was missed for 3.0? Anyone out there
with the inside scoop on this? Was the fixing of this problem
discussed in some PEP or some mailing list thread? (I've tried
Googling this but did not hit on the right keywords to bring up
the deliberations I'm looking for.)
There was a proposal to put the whole stdlib into a gigantic package, so
that
import itertools
would become, for instance
import std.itertools.
Guido rejected that. I believe he both did not like it and was concerned
about making upgrade to 3.x even harder. The discussion was probably on
the now closed py3k list.
Thanks. I'll look for this thread.
Stephen Hansen's post explains a bit more than I did. To supplement his
explanation: since print *was* a keyword, every use of 'print' in 2.x
denotes a print statement with standard semantics. Therefore 2to3
*knows* what the statement means and can translate it. On the other
hand, 'import string' usually means 'import the string module of the
stdlib', but it could mean 'import my string module'. This depends on
the execution environment. Moreover, I believe people have intentionally
shadowed stdlib modules. So. like it or not, 2to3 cannot know what
'import string' means.
Terry Jan Reedy
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