[Zope3-Users] Re: Using dotted package names

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

George Lee wrote:
> I am trying to be a good programmer and create pure Zope packages instead of
> Plone products when possible.

That's great! Note that you will either need Zope 2.10 or Zope 2.9 + 
Five 1.4 for this.

> How do dotted package names (like plone.portlets or dotted.name) work? In
> \zopeinstance\lib\python, is the package actually in
> \zopeinstance\lib\python\dotted.name, or is it in
> \zopeinstance\lib\python\dotted\name?

The latter.

> What is the purpose of using the dotted name?

Short answer: package namespaces.

Long answer: Say you're creating a widget library. You could call your 
package simply "widget". But then if I create a widget library and 
called it "widget", too, we'd have a conflict and couldn't use them at 
the same time. That's why you call your package "george.widget" and I'll 
call my package "philikon.widget". Makes sense?