ZAzahlman·Jul 23, 2025
> I think this is a design issue with PyPI though. It really should have some kind of index which goes from module names to packages which provide that module. (Maybe it already does but I don't know about it?)
PyPI never really saw much "design" (although there is a GitHub project for the site: https://github.com/pypi/warehouse/ as well as for a mirror client: https://github.com/pypa/bandersnatch). But an established principle now is that anyone can upload a distribution with whatever name they want — first come, first serve by default. Further, nobody has to worry about what anyone else's existing software is in order to do this. Although there are restrictions to avoid typo-squatting or other social engineering attempts (and in the modern era, names of standard library modules are automatically blacklisted).
> Of course, that doesn't h
Read the rest
elp if multiple packages provide the same module; but then if there was a process to reserve a module name – either one which no package is currently using, or if it is currently used only by a single package, give the owner of that package ownership of the module – and then the module name owner can bless a single package as the primary package for that module name.
These kinds of conflicts are actually by design. You're supposed to be able to have competing implementations of the same API.
> Obviously it shouldn't do this by default... maybe something like "from __future__ import auto_install" to enable it.
The language is not realistically going to change purely to support packaging. The time to propose this was in 2006. (Did you know pip was first released before Python 3.0?)
> but maybe Python will eventually get there.
That would require the relevant people to agree that with heading in that direction. IMX, they have many reasons they don't want to.
Anyway, this isn't the place to pitch such ideas. It would be better to try the Ideas and/or Packaging forums on https://discuss.python.org — but be prepared for them to tell you the same things.