[ianb]

It gets bad if you use pip and easy_install with namespace packages. If you stick to one or the other you should generally be okay.

But yes, just use socratic_{name} – it makes everything easier, and "." and "_" are just string differences. The only good reason IMHO for using namespace packages is because you are breaking up an existing package into multiple packages and you want to keep the dotted names. And even then I might just prefer a compatibility package that does the mapping and move things to entirely new package names.