[issue22571] Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy  added the comment:

I am going to accept Raymond's rejection of a general change.  I will 
reconsider the tkinter doc should I ever work on it.

For IDLE code, I have settled on 'from tkinter import Tk, Text, ..., perhaps 
followed by 'from tkinter.ttk import Scrollbar, ...'.  But having alternate 
sources for many modules is a special case.  Listing each object is a bit more 
effort*, but I like knowing what is imported, from where after reading the 
module header. (* With complete tests, NameErrors quickly expose omissions.)

Carol, thank you for bumping this issue.

--
resolution:  -> rejected
stage: needs patch -> resolved
status: open -> closed
type:  -> enhancement

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[issue22571] Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?

[Carol Willing]

Carol Willing  added the comment:

Hi @terry.reedy @rhettinger,

I'm triaging the 'turtle' open issues. I'm wondering if we can close this issue 
with a resolution of "Remind". If there are '*' imports that folks feel 
strongly about changing, then those could be opened now or in the future as a 
new, more narrowly scoped issue(s) with cleared next actions for contributors.

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[issue22571] Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?

[Raymond Hettinger]

Raymond Hettinger added the comment:

Many of these (such as collections, collections.abc, decimal, and itertools) 
use import * as part of the doctest setup and are not part of the generated 
page shown to users.

Also, I don't think you should be aggressive about removing the other example 
that are visible users.   The import * construct is part of the language and 
will be encountered occasionally.

For similar reasons, the decimal module was specifically designed for be easily 
usable with import * because of the numerous exceptions and rounding flags 
and constants.

There are also some examples such the one in cmd.rst that I put there 
on-purpose.  Changing it would distract from the focus of the example.

With respect to Tkinter (and other gui toolkits as well), I believe that 
import * is a standard or common practice, in part because there are so many 
widget names names and widget options.  Changing the example might make it more 
pep8-ish but would result in a good deal of clutter that isn't the normal 
practice.


  Should we finish the job?  Or leave the issue to
 individual chapter authors?

I vote for leaving any changes to the chapter authors who are in a better 
position to know that they were trying to communicate or who were just setting 
up the doctests.   As discussed above some of the import * are there for a 
reason.

We really need to start thinking of PEP 8 as something we do to our own code 
rather than something that gets inflicted on other people's code.

--
assignee: docs@python - rhettinger
nosy: +rhettinger

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[issue22571] Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?

[Tshepang Lekhonkhobe]

Changes by Tshepang Lekhonkhobe tshep...@gmail.com:


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[issue22571] Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?

[Mark Dickinson]

Mark Dickinson added the comment:

I think it's fine to recommend using (for example) ` from decimal import *` 
at the command-line prompt when experimenting with a module.  It's a quick way 
to get yourself into a state where you can easily experiment with that module 
and its features.

That's not the same as recommending that scripts using the decimal module start 
with from decimal import *, of course.

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[issue22571] Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?

[Terry J. Reedy]

New submission from Terry J. Reedy:

PEP 8 recommends against 'from mod import *' because it makes reading harder 
and is bad for code analysis.  My experience with retrofitting tests to idlelib 
modules with tkinter * imports is that it also makes testing harder since the 
testing strategy depends on the specific tkinter objects actually used.  So 
either an explicit list ('from tkinter import x, y, z') or a searchable prefix 
('tk.') makes testing easier.  

Some time ago, 'from tkinter import *' was changed to 'import tkinter as tk' in 
the tkinter doc examples, though *not* the text.  ##10031 changed the import 
section of the FAQ to remove the advice to use from ... import * with some 
modules (from the commit message).  Should we finish the job?  Or leave the 
issue to individual chapter authors?

Here is the edited result of grepping 'import *' in ...\py34\Doc\*.rst with 
Idle.

F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\distutils\apiref.rst: 1289: This module is safe to use 
in ``from ... import *`` mode; it only exports
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\cmd.rst: 234: from turtle import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\collections.abc.rst: 14:from collections 
import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\collections.rst: 11: from collections 
import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 54: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 86: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 320: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 562: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 671: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 695: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 714: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 914: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 1074: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\ctypes.rst: 1122: from ctypes import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\decimal.rst: 20:from decimal import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\decimal.rst: 56:   from decimal import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\decimal.rst: 125: from decimal import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\difflib.rst: 13:from difflib import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\itertools.rst: 12:from itertools import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\stat.rst: 104:from stat import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\statistics.rst: 13:from statistics import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\struct.rst: 313: from struct import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\tkinter.rst: 63:from tkinter import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\tkinter.rst: 580:from tkinter import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\tkinter.tix.rst: 60:   from 
tkinter.constants import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\tkinter.ttk.rst: 38:from tkinter import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\tkinter.ttk.rst: 39:from tkinter.ttk 
import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\library\turtle.rst: 11:from turtle import *

F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 102: from fibo import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 461: Now what happens when the 
user writes ``from sound.effects import *``?  Ideally,
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 470: list of module names that 
should be imported when ``from package import *`` is
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 479: This would mean that ``from 
sound.effects import *`` would import the three
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 482: If ``__all__`` is not 
defined, the statement ``from sound.effects import *``
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 493:from sound.effects 
import *
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\modules.rst: 501: patterns when you use 
``import *``, it is still considered bad practise in
F:\Python\dev\4\py34\Doc\tutorial\stdlib2.rst: 372: from decimal import *

I removed the reference hits that simply explain.  I have not looked at whether 
the tutorial goes beyond explanation, but should this even be mentioned in so 
many places?

--
assignee: docs@python
components: Documentation
messages: 228734
nosy: docs@python, georg.brandl, terry.reedy
priority: normal
severity: normal
stage: needs patch
status: open
title: Remove import * recommendations and examples in doc?
versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.4, Python 3.5

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