Re: PEP 420 issue: extend_path

On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 7:56 PM, Nick Coghlan <[email protected]> wrote:
> "will be a list containing only" -> "will contain only"
>
> Independent of PEP 420, something we should probably consider for the
> official documentation of the import system is making a clearer
> distinction between importers (on sys.meta_path) and finders (returned
> by sys.path_hooks entries) than was the case in PEP 302 (which calls
> them all finders).

Yeah, it's a mess.  From my perspective I'd label them in reverse of
that: "finder" for sys.meta_path and "path importer" for
sys.path_hooks.  Finders are pretty well defined already and
"importer" is unfortunately pretty overloaded already.  In PEP 302,
"importer" is the name of the finder/loader protocol and an object
implementing *either* is an importer.  The PEP also names the
callables on sys.path_hooks as "importer factories" (they return
finders).

Another less desirable option is "path hook" (finder factory) and
"meta path hook" (finder), but that implies the opposite precedence
and adds yet another synonym for "finder".

Regardless, +1 on better demarcating the distinction.

-eric