This is a conceptual question rather than an actual problem, I wanted to ask the great big Internet crowd for feedback.

We all know imported modules end up in the namespace of that module:

```
# Module a:
import b
__all__ = ['f']
f = lambda: None

```

That allows you to do this:

```
import a
a.b  # <- Valid attribute

```

Sometimes that's great, but most imports are side effects of the feature your module provides. In the example above I don't mean to expose `b` as a valid interface for callers of `a`.

To counteract that we **could** do:

```
import b as _b

```

This marks the import as private. But I can't find that practice described anywhere nor does PEP8 talk about using aliasing to mark imports as private. So I take it it's not common practice. But from a certain angle I'd say it's definitely semantically clearer, because it cleans up the exposed bits of your module leaving only the relevant interfaces you actually mean to expose. Working with an IDE with autocomplete it makes the suggested list much slimmer.

My question boils down to if you've seen that pattern in use? Does it have a name? What arguments would go against using it?

I have not had success using the the `__all__` functionality to hide the `b` import. I'm using PyCharm and do not see the autocomplete list change.

E.g. from some module I can do:

```
import a

```

And the autocomplete box show both `b` and `f`.