Last I checked (a while ago), the Unix port did not have aliases for <module> --> <umodule>

Last I checked (a while ago), the Unix port did not have aliases for -->

This was implemented in #5241

The existing weak links system (used on STM32/ESP32/ESP8266) was replaced with an automatic rule to alias foo to ufoo if it exists (now enabled on most ports).

This was implemented in #5241

Okay then. =)

completly agree with the arguments, +1.

And after all we do have a „micro“ - in „micropython“ (or „upy“) so we still have the „u“ 😉. I just wished upy would have been chosen rather than mpy.

Has there been any discussion about moving non-standard APIs out of modules that share a name with CPython? Managing filesystems (http://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/uos.html?highlight=uos#filesystem-mounting) is one example. In CircuitPython, we moved these APIs to a separate storage module. That way code written in MicroPython will then work in CPython.

Has there been any discussion about moving non-standard APIs out of modules that share a name with CPython? Managing filesystems is one example

There was some related discussion about a "storage" module in #4772 (comment)

I do understand the arguments for doing this, moving non-CPython stuff out of CPython-named modules. But it's not easy. For example, what about time.sleep_ms(), time.ticks_ms() and uzlib.DecompIO (none of those exist in CPython)? And also minor additions like extra args to existing CPython functions/methods. In the end a u-module is not a strict subset of the corresponding CPython module but rather has a (large) overlap with it, and so one can write Python code that runs under both CPy and uPy that uses only the overlap.

Moving all the uPy-specific filesystem stuff out of uos into a uPy-specific module is pretty easy to do (and make backwards compatible), and may be a good idea, something to look in to. But some of the other stuff is much harder to separate.

For learnability and aesthetics perspective, simplifying namespaces is a big +1. As Jimmo mention and as instructor myself, using "module" everywhere instead of "umodule" is important while teaching Python. For example, a bicycle is not expected to acelerate as much as an airplane, but the aceleration concept is the same regardless of the name.

Compatibility wise, it isn't a particularly pleasant experience to have to wrap code in try/except blocks for obvious namespaces just to 'teach' the computer where to find the functionality people need, making code much harder to read, write, and reason about.

Codecov Report

Merging #5377 (f69cc41) into master (42d1a16) will decrease coverage by 0.01%.
The diff coverage is n/a.

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #5377      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   98.30%   98.29%   -0.02%     
==========================================
  Files         154      154              
  Lines       20014    20014              
==========================================
- Hits        19675    19673       -2     
- Misses        339      341       +2     

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I have rebased this and sorted out the manual fixups. Also a bit of a reword of the overview in library/index.rst.

The two remaining u-libraries mentioned in the docs are uctypes (which has almost no overlap with ctypes) and ureqests. The former I suggest we rename to ntypes or native or something (leaving uctypes as an alias) in a separate PR, and urequests is in micropython-lib anyway and not subject to weak links.

One thing I just realised is that we're now going to break any existing docs links to the latest tag. e.g. https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/uos.html is now https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/os.html I guess three options (in order of preference):

• Add placeholder/redirect ufoo.rst --> foo.rst
• Only rename the content, not the files
• Do nothing, the 404 page gives a link back to the docs home page.

Add placeholder/redirect ufoo.rst --> foo.rst

I should be able to do this on the server side.

I should be able to do this on the server side.

It's weak links all the way down :)

Thanks, sounds perfect.

Merged in 2186063 through d7fbc75