[Gdal-dev] Re: GDAL's Python Identity Crisis (was Re: Import Gdal)

[Christopher Barker]

Howard Butler wrote:
> This is something that Frank is probably sick of me whining about.

Well, I, for one, am glad someone else is whining!

>  I'm 
> willing to make the changes, but the consequence of doing so is we have 
> to suck up the testing, question answering, and other grief a change 
> like this will likely cause.  Can you do that with me? 

Sure I'd be glad to help.

> I think we 
> should only do this for the next-gen bindings,

I agree, though it might be better from a confusion stand point to have 
them both the same -- I'm really not sure.

> The other issue is if we namespace the Python GDAL packages, what do we 
> pick for a name?

Darn -- why are they different?

Anyway, I vote for package name gdal, with modules gdal, osr, ogr. So 
you could do:

from gdal, import gdal, osr, ogr

(to convert from old code).

However, I did have an idea about covering the transition by having the 
old names be small modules that raised a deprecation warning, then 
imported everything from the new package (did I post that idea on the 
list? I thought so). However, if we wanted to do that, then we couldn't 
have a package "gdal", and a module "gdal" in the same place, so we'd 
need to use another name: maybe osgeo, like C#, (why does Java use 
"org"? that's odd.)

Anyway, the name is the least of my concerns.

Are you going to FOSS4G next week? I was thinking of working on this at 
the sprint.

-Chris





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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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