Missing __init__.py files causes pylint to fail to lint some modules

[timmc-edx]

Pylint won't lint Python modules in directories that lack an __init__.py file, causing us to miss lint errors: https://github.com/openedx/event-bus-kafka/pull/36

Discovery required. Information so far:

• This has previously been fixed in pylint but may have regressed again by at least 2.14.5 (based on what we saw in event-bus-kafka).
• edx-platform has a CI check that validates that every dir with Python code has a dunder-init file; we could make this a standard CI check.
  • Pytest is opinionated against having __init__.py in test directories. We would need to find out why first.
  • We might actually want to use namespace packages in the future (which don't have dunder-init files).

References:

• More information on regular vs. namespace packages (new concept in Python 3.3+): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37139786/is-init-py-not-required-for-packages-in-python-3-3/48804718#48804718

[jristau1984]

@timmc-edx can you offer insights on if this still needs to remain open? Thanks!

[timmc-edx]

It all still looks relevant. I don't think anything has changed about it.

[jristau1984]

Note: This should move to the event-bus-kafka repo.

This bullet could be carved out into a separate, more general, community task:

edx-platform https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/pull/27875 that validates that every dir with Python code has a dunder-init file; we could make this a standard CI check.

• Pytest is opinionated against having init.py in test directories. We would need to find out why first.
• We might actually want to use namespace packages in the future (which don't have dunder-init files).