Python packaging documentation feedback and discussion

Right, though that documentation doesn’t discuss distribution packaging at all—there, “package” is only ever defined and used to mean an import package. Its certainly arguable that the unambiguous term should be used there as well, though as the reader will presumably read that tutorial as they are first leading how to program in Python, well before they get to sharing their code with others through distribution packaging and they are taught even what that is, it seems to me to be less potentially confusing than its use in various areas of, say, the packaging.python.org site, never mind third party blogs and articles.

In hindsight, given how Python and world evolved in the meantime, it certainly might have been a better idea to use terminology like “[file/directory] module” rather than repurposing the word “package” to mean a directory of modules that can be imported (as opposed to the distribution-oriented container around them).

However, I’m not really sure how realistic it would be to change it at this point, given it is a long-established term fairly deeply embedded in all kinds of names and parts of the language, import system, stdlib and distribution packaging infrastructure, and the fact that the unambiguous term “distribution package” would continue to need to be used for at least the length of the (5-10+ year) transition period, in order to continue to be unambitious, until the revised usage is widely used and accepted.

Considering we’re still weaning people off direct invocation of setup.py for building 5+ years from that being deprecated, and probably will be for years to come, I’m not optimistic, and such name changes also consume valuable and highly limited churn budget already strained in recent years, with modern packaging standards only now finally starting to stabilize.

I’m not sure what you mean, sorry. Just in the Python language/stdlib and its official documentation alone, “package” in the context of “import package” (with a few exceptions, core Python does not deal with distribution packaging nearly at all—make of that what you will) is used, for example:

So, I’m a little confused what you’re trying to say, sorry.