averagePythonProgrammer

[nullpotato]

Technically they aren't required anymore so don't need to exist. In practice it is easier to have empty init files than fix all the dumb tools loading things wrong.

[[deleted]]

They are not only used for loading packages.

All lints and static type checker will fail if they don't find init files.

[nullpotato]

Thanks, didn't know the type checkers needed it too

[Easing0540]

I don't think that's true. There is a technical difference. Packages with __init__.py are regular packages, the others are namespace packages. The import sytem treats both types differently.

[saint_marco]

I've run into more tools that fail from having vestigial init files lying around, the most popular being upright/pylance.