Package organization

[Mike Wyatt]

I've been playing around with Python for a few months now, and I just
recently started looking at packages to organize my growing project. So
far, I've been organizing my application into one class per module.
This has been working pretty well. For example, I simply "import
timer", then use "t = timer.Timer()" to allocate a new Timer object, .
Unfortunately, this is yielding some pretty odd syntax when I use
packages. Here is a sample of my package structure:

/engine
/graphics
/input
/world
/timer
timer.py # contains Timer class
main.py

Let's say I want to create a Timer object in main.py. I would need to
do something like this:

import engine.timer.timer.Timer
t = engine.timer.timer.Timer()

Maybe I shouldn't have a module and package with the same name, but it
seems the most logical design. Unfortunately, the code is a bit ugly
with "timer" included in the import three times.

Is there a better way to do this? How do you guys organize your
packages and modules?

 

[Matt Good]

I've been playing around with Python for a few months now, and I just
recently started looking at packages to organize my growing project. So
far, I've been organizing my application into one class per module.
This has been working pretty well. For example, I simply "import
timer", then use "t = timer.Timer()" to allocate a new Timer object, .
Unfortunately, this is yielding some pretty odd syntax when I use
packages. Here is a sample of my package structure:

/engine
/graphics
/input
/world
/timer
timer.py # contains Timer class
main.py

Let's say I want to create a Timer object in main.py. I would need to
do something like this:

import engine.timer.timer.Timer
t = engine.timer.timer.Timer()

Maybe I shouldn't have a module and package with the same name, but it
seems the most logical design. Unfortunately, the code is a bit ugly
with "timer" included in the import three times.

Is there a better way to do this? How do you guys organize your
packages and modules?

One class per module? Sounds like you've been programming in Java (or
C#) for too long

But skipping the package structure for a moment you can simplify your
use of the Timer class by changing your imports:

from engine.timer.timer import Timer
t = Timer()

OR

from engine.timer import timer
t = timer.Timer()

Ok, back to package structure. In Python putting 1 class per module
basically means you're adding an extra level of nesting beyond the
equivalent structure in languages like Java and C# that require you to
create a new file per-class.

In Java defining "engine/timer/Timer.java" you'd get an
"engine.timer.Timer" class.
As you saw in Python defining Timer in "engine/timer/timer.py" the
class is now "engine.timer.timer.Timer".

Dropping that extra level by combining the classes in engine.timer into
a single module will simplify things.

-- Matt Good