On Nov 29, 2007 3:12 PM, Terry Reedy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Guido van Rossum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > | But then I thought, what if we renamed the __builtin__ module instead > | to builtins, and left __builtins__ alone? > | > | In Python 0.1, __builtin__ *was* called builtin, and I think the > | reason for renaming it wasn't particularly well thought-out; as a > | *module*, I'm not sure that it really needs to have such a special > | name (I don't think it's more special than sys, anyway). There's no > | motivation in the checkin comment that renamed it (r3527). > > +1 for plain 'builtins' or whatever for the name of the module. I believe > it would have been less confusing to me learning Python, (and still today > ;-) if it had been this way 10 years ago.
Right. It was this way 15 years ago. :-) > The rationale for special __xxx__ names (identifiers) is to avoid namespace > clashes. So they are only needed for namespace names bound to objects, > including string objects representing definition names. Since > '__builtin__' is merely a string object bound to '__name__' (I presume) in > the module itself and to '__builtins__' in all others, a string that did > not imitate a reserved identifier would be clearer, at least to me. Right again. > Similarly, by the way, the main module might justifiably be '__name__'ed > 'main' rather than '__main__' since whatever string is bound to '__name__' > is *not* in the module namespace. "if __name__ == 'main' " is a bit easier > to type and to me a bit clearer. The only problem would be if someone put > the incantation into a non-main module named 'main.py', but the same is > true today of '__main__.py'. And I would consider either a buggy practice. Not quite. main.py is a valid regular module name and shouldn't be endowed with special powers. But __main__.py would be a "reserved" module name, like __init__.py, and could reasonably be expected to have extra semantics. > These are the only two builtin strings I can think of that have the form of > special names, even though they are not actually identifiers. I'm not sure I follow. A module name is an identifier too. (This is how it's used by import.) > If so, they > are the only two 'special names' that *must* be quoted as strings, while > binding names (identifiers) usually are not. If both were changed, then > 'special names' would simply be 'internal namespace names used by the > implementation'. I think this would make it easier for beginners to keep > separate the notions of 'identifier' and 'string'. I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
