zooko wrote:
Folks:
Here's an experiment you can perform. Round up a Python programmer and
ask him the following three questions:
Q1. You type "import foo" and it works. What kind of thing is foo?
Q2. You go to the Python package index and download something named
"bar-1.0.0.tar.gz". What kind of thing is bar?
Q3. What is a "distribution"?
I'm willing to bet that you will get the following answers:
A1. foo is a module.
A2. bar is a package.
A3. A distribution is a version of Linux that comes with a lot of Free
Software.
Unfortunately these answers aren't quite right. A "package" is actually
a directory containing an __init__.py file, and a distribution is
actually what you think of when you say "package" -- a reusable package
of Python code that you can, for example, get from the Python package
index.
Educational efforts such as the Python tutorial and the distutils docs
have not succeeded in training Python programmers to understand the
terminology for these things as used by the Python implementors, so
perhaps instead the implementors should start using the terminology
understood by the programmers:
1. A "module" shall henceforth be the name for either a foo.py file (a
single-file module), or a directory with an __init__.py in it (a
directory module).
2. A "package" shall henceforth be the name of the thing that is
currently called a "distribution".
-1
Zooko
who doesn't mind stirring up trouble on occasion...
regards
Steve
who doesn't mind trouble but would rather see communications improve
--
Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/
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