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The whatsnew currently says that module_for_loader is pending deprecation in favor of utils.module_to_load, but there is no such function. Instead there is a private function utils._module_to_load...even though there is a news entry that claimed that the non-private name was added (but there are no docs for it, nor any associated issue number).
So, importlib experts, can you clean up the docs and/or code please? :)

utils.module_to_load() has been removed (it was introduced in 3.4) and module_for_loader() remains deprecated. The import machinery now does the work that both functions did, rendering them unnecessary. I guess I failed to take a look at whatsnew relative all the PEP 451 changes.

Here is another one:
There's a news entry for the introduction of importlib.abc.Loader.init_module_attrs, but no news entry for its removal (but it is gone). There is still a whatsnew entry that mentions it.
IMO there should be a NEWS entry that mentions the removal, since there is one that mentions the add. Similarly for module_to_load.
Based on the deprecation warning in the module_for_loader code, I'm changing the whatsnew entry for its deprecation to the same text (that the import system handles it automatically) and referencing the pep 451 entry. I get the impression from that entry that there are quite a few more importlib methods and functions that need to be listed there as deprecated.

set_loader and set_package are also deprecated (docs are accurate for that: http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/importlib.html#module-importlib.util . Everything else that is deprecated are methods are were deprecated in Python 3.3.

Are there still changes needed for 3.4.0? Or is 3.4.0 okay? This is marked as "release blocker".

I think the docs are accurate (but I haven't been *all* the way down the NEWS chain yet). I have a fix for whatsnew in my buffer that I haven't applied yet. Probably this weekend. But as a doc change, I don't see this as a release blocker anyway.

New changeset 8f54f601fd75 by R David Murray in branch 'default':
whatsnew: importlib deprecations.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/8f54f601fd75 

I just committed a fix for the importlib deprecations entry, based on the deprecation notes in the docs. There are quite a few methods deprecated in 3.4 because of modulespec, but only a few *sorts* of methods.
One possible anomaly (though it looks intentional) is that the importlib.abc.FileLoader exec_module method is deprecated, just like for the other abcs, but unlike the other abcs, there is no replacement exec_module method...instead the deprecation note directs the reader to Loader.exec_module. I'm not familiar enough with importlib to know if that redirection would make sense to a Loader implementor.
I'm let one of the imporlib maintainers close this if they agree that I've gotten it right.

The importlib.abc.FileLoader deprecation w/o exec_module() makes sense. The load_module() method simply called super().load_module() as the class is fully abstract and only provides get_filename() and get_data() for convenience. And since importlib.abc.Loader doesn't have exec_module() as abstract there's simply no need to define the method.
And thanks for doing all of this work to make the What's New doc be so thorough!

I'll cherry-pick 8f54f601fd75.

What you might want to do instead is wait until just before final (or until I say I am done, if we get that lucky) and copy the whole 3.4 whatsnew file over. I'm up through Alpha 1 in the NEWS file at this point, and I do intend to continue to to work on it.

New changeset 1640e3b7def6 by R David Murray in branch '3.4':
whatsnew: importlib deprecations.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/1640e3b7def6