[Biopython-dev] PEP8 lower case module names?

[Wibowo Arindrarto]

Hi guys,

If I may add my two cents on this issue,  I think it's also a chance
to rectify all other namespace issues that we may have (not just
PEP8-related).

For instance:

* In the root namespace, we now have Bio.Align and Bio.AlignIO. Since
we might be merging Bio.Seq and Bio.SeqIO into bio[py].seq (per the
Github discussion[1]), I suppose we should do the same with Bio.Align
as well (perhaps into bio[py].seq.align or bio[py].align).

* With the change above, we might also want to change some of the
submodule names completely. For example, if we merge Bio.Align into
bio[py].align we'll have bio[py].align.applications, which I
personally think could be shortened into bio[py].align.app.

* As per the Github disscussion[1] as well, perhaps Bio.SeqUtils
should also be merged as Seq object methods.

There may be other changes as well, but the bottom line is all these
changes will be quite considerable. As such, I think we could go all
the way and be explicit in stating that the changes will be
incompatible with previous Biopython versions (i.e. old scripts will
break).

As for bio.* and biopy.*, if we do decide to go all the way, bio.*
seems like a better choice since there will be other incompatible
changes anyway. But if we eventually decide to only fix PEP8-related
issues while keeping compatibility with older versions, I'm leaning
more towards biopy.*.

regards,
Bow

[1] https://github.com/biopython/biopython/pull/63#issuecomment-8252340

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Michiel de Hoon <mjldehoon at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Hi Peter,
>>
>> --- On Tue, 9/4/12, Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> One idea I was pondering is a new parallel namespace,
>>> ideally bio.* but we can't use that due to case
>>> insensitive file systems like Windows and (by default)
>>> Mac OS X. So perhaps biopy, or bp?
>>
>> As you say, the ideal namespace is bio.*, so let's use
>> that. We have been using Bio.* for more than 10 years.
>> We should not get stuck with a non-ideal namespace for
>> the next 10+ years because there may be some glitches
>> switching from Bio.* to bio.*. Frankly I doubt that this
>> will cause huge problems in practice.
>
> So you'd advocate a simple switch where from one
> release to the next we change all the module names
> (making them lower case, perhaps from consolidation
> under bio.seq too)?
>
> This may cause some difficulties for upgrades - it may
> require manual intervention to remove the old Bio folder
> in order to allow creation of the new bio folder.
>
>>> We could gradually move code over to the new namespace,
>>> using imports to preserve back compatibility - but support
>>> both namespaces during a (long) transition period.
>>
>> Why do we need a transition period? It's just a matter
>> of replacing upper case with lower case in the imports.
>
> That forces people to update all their scripts at once.
> Of course, we can document how to do this so a script
> would work before and after the case change, e.g.
>
> try:
>     from bio.seq import Seq
> except ImportError:
>
>     from Bio.Seq import Seq
>
>>> What I like about this is it allows people to make a
>>> gradual
>>> conversion - and we don't have to burden of two main
>>> branches if we attempted a single jump to a Biopython v2.
>>>
>>> Does this seem worth considering?
>>
>> Yes but by all means, let's keep this simple. In the past, changes to Biopython have very rarely caused any serious problems for users.
>>
>> Best,
>> -Michiel.
>>
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