Should one use this library or the one from Python's standard library?

[jaraco]

In GitLab by @sinoroc on Sep 30, 2020, 10:00

This is not an issue report, it is a question. Hopefully it is acceptable to ask it here, otherwise please redirect me to the appropriate venue...

In order to avoid the try-import-except-import dance, I am considering simply using this library for all Python versions that my project supports (Python 3.5 to 3.8, potentially 3.9), instead of importlib.metadata from the standard library where available. Is that an acceptable thing to do, any drawback one should be aware of?

On one side, one can read:

Users of Python 3.8 and beyond are encouraged to use the standard library module. When imported on Python 3.8 and later, importlib_metadata replaces the DistributionFinder behavior from the stdlib, but leaves the API in tact.

-- https://importlib-metadata.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

On the other:

This functionality is provisional and may deviate from the usual version semantics of the standard library.

-- https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.metadata.html

This is a bit confusing. What does that mean? What are more concretely the pros and cons of using one or the other?

Is there a way to know which version of importlib-metadata is in which version of Python (if that makes sense)?

[gkedge]

I want to be shmart using Python3.8 also. Do I install importlib-metadata or not?

[FFY00]

This should be the same as python/importlib_resources#196 (comment).

So I think you should check the importlib.metadata documentation and/or Python release notes and see if the feature you need is in the standard library or if you need to use this package which backports it.

[jaraco]

Thanks FFY00. That's right, the approach is the same. At this time of writing, most of the functionality of importlib_metadata is in Python 3.8. Some recent features like dist attribute on entry points will only appear in later Pythons (probably 3.10).

[sinoroc]

I guess the following commit also helps with this question: 0c86a02