Fix external plugins import

[Nodd]

Description

I had to change the package name for autopep8, because there was a name clash with the autopep8 package that's used in autopep8 plugin.
In theory spyder plugins should be loaded as spyplugins.ui.pluginame, but it seems that somehow pluginame is added to sys.modules too.

Version and main components

• Spyder Version: 3.0.0dev
• Python Version: 3.5.1
• Qt Versions: 5.5.1, PyQt5 5.5.1 on Linux

Dependencies

pyflakes >=0.6.0:  1.1.0 (OK)
pep8 >=0.6      :  1.7.0 (OK)
pygments >=1.6  :  2.1.3 (OK)
qtconsole >=4.0 :  4.2.1 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0 :  4.2.0 (OK)
pandas >=0.13.1 :  0.18.0 (OK)
numpy >=1.7     :  1.11.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6  :  1.4.1 (OK)
rope >=0.9.4    :  0.9.4-1 (OK)
jedi >=0.8.1    :  0.9.0 (OK)
psutil >=0.3    :  4.1.0 (OK)
matplotlib >=1.0:  1.5.1 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3   :  None (NOK)
pylint >=0.25   :  1.5.5 (OK)

[goanpeca]

@Nodd can we consider moving away from namespace packages?, I know it was something we agreed on before but it seems they are falling out of favour in the python community and other libraries have moved away from them.

Like flask, i.e. http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/0.10/extensions/

[Nodd]

Well, it's better to do it now rather than after 3.0 is out. What is the problem with namespace packages exactly?

If I understand correctly, extensions would work by searching in sys.path (and ~/.spyder/userplugins/) for every module starting with spyderplugin_ (or similar) and import it ?
Edit: I don't remember where we initially discussed about namespace plugins. Do you have a link?

[goanpeca]

Apparently they created more problems than they solve, conda does not necessarily play well, and some of the conda devs say that we should stay away from them.

If I understand correctly, extensions would work by searching in sys.path (and ~/.spyder/userplugins/) for every module starting with spyderplugin_ (or similar) and import it ?

Yes, that would be the easy fix and avoid name collisions once and for all

I dont remember about the link either

[goanpeca]

Well the names could be

spyder-profiler, spyder-line-profiler, spyder-memory-profiler, spyder-conda-manager, spyder-git, etc

and the imports would be

spyder_profiler

[ccordoba12]

I don't think namespace packages are much of a problem in our case, unless we make one package depend on another. That's were problems could arise.

@goanpeca, what do you propose as an alternative?

[ccordoba12]

I see, so we can follow the Flask model. Changes to do it don't seem too hard to implement for me :-)

[goanpeca]

@ccordoba12, yes we should follow the flask model. No, the changes are not so big.

[ccordoba12]

@goanpeca, could you open a PR with those changes?

I'd do it myself but I'm really swamped with the move to Qt 5.6 (now I'm in charge of the Windows conda packages too :-).

[goanpeca]

👍

[Nodd]

How do we differentiate between UI and IO plugins ? Using a subdirectory is not very practical without a namespace package (both for the plugin developer and the implementation in spyder).
There are different options:

1. .ini file
2. spyder_ui_ and spyder_io_ as prefix instead of spyder_
3. Different parent classes, but you need to import the plugins to know their type, the implementation would be ugly

Option 1 can be interesting for building a plugin manager because there could be other information here. They could also be stored as attributes in the modules (similar to __version__).