[Python-Dev] Breaking undocumented API

Wed Nov 10 05:12:09 CET 2010

Nick Coghlan writes:
 > > Module writers who compound the error by expecting to be imported
 > > this way, thereby bogarting the global namespace for their own
 > > purposes, should be fish-slapped. ;)
 > 
 > Be prepared to fish-slap all of python-dev then - we use precisely
 > this technique to support optional acceleration modules. The pure
 > Python versions of pairs like profile/_profile and heapq/_heapq
 > include a try/except block at the end that does the equivalent of:
 > 
 > try:
 > from _accelerated import * # Allow accelerated overrides
 > except ImportError:
 > pass # Use pure Python versions
But these identifiers will appear at the module level, not global, no?
Otherwise this technique couldn't be used. I don't really understand
what Tres is talking about when he writes "modules that expect to be
imported this way". The *imported* module shouldn't care, no? This
is an issue for the *importing* code to deal with.