[Biopython-dev] PEP8 lower case module names?

[Eric Talevich]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Michiel de Hoon <mjldehoon at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- On Thu, 9/6/12, Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > For any shared server, [...] you
> > would be forced into a mass change at one go.
>
> OK, for multiple users on a shared server I see your point.


True, and old scripts/pipelines have a way of sticking around, especially
once they've been shared with others in the lab.


> Here's a further (and slightly more radical) idea: We
> > stick with using 'Bio' and the current mixed case
> > names on Python 2, but adopt 'bio' and other PEP8
> > compatible names for Python 3 (as a uniform
> > strict automatic rule: mixed case -> lower case)?
> > i.e. Do this as part of our 2to3 process.
>
> The Python developers argue against combining a switch to Python 3 with
> other major changes, since then if bugs arise it is unclear if it is due to
> the switch to Python 3 or due to the other changes. But perhaps it's OK if
> we have one Bio.* version for Python 2 and one bio.* version for Python 3
> that are otherwise completely identical to each other.
>

Agreed, since the bio.* version is generated by the 2to3 script it should
still be easy enough to distinguish "this is a bug in the library" from
"this is a problem with Py3, 2to3 or your environment". The extra
separation on the filesystem provided by Py2/Py3 should also prevent some
problems with case-insensitivity and the environment.


> > How about over the next year we gradually consolidate
> > modules under the existing mixed case names? e.g.
> > move Bio.AlignIO functionality and Bio.Align,
>
> I guess you meant "merge Bio.AlignIO functionality into Bio.Align".
>
> > and Bio.Seq* under Bio.Seq (leaving backwards compatible
> > imports supported but deprecated).
>
> Sounds good to me. AFAIAC, we don't need to do this gradually over the
> next year. May as well do it for the next release.
>
>
Doing this in a single release might be better, so we can document/remember
the release number when the Grand Reshuffling took place and troubleshoot
users' resulting problems more easily.

Should we call that Biopython 2.0.0 and switch to semantic version numbers?