Cannot import a class from original module after it has been established as an entry_point

[mattwthompson]

It seems that once a thing (class, function, etc.) is established an mBuild recipe via an entry_point, it can no longer be imported directly from its original class. This is concerning only in the sense that it might be confusing for a developer to lose this import after setting up their packages as a recipe. If there's no straightforward way around this, that's fine, it should just be documented.

This is the Python script I used to test this behavior. Here I am comparing behavior on the master branch (no recipe configuration) of Ray's pore builder recipe and a feature branch that sets up the recipe.

(master)$ python -W ignore check-import.py 
Importing from module was a:
	Success!
Importing from mBuild was a:
	Failure.
(mosdef-dev) [Clausius] ~/software/recipes/Pore-Builder
(master)$ git checkout recipe ; pip install -e .
Switched to branch 'recipe'
Obtaining file:///Users/mwt/software/recipes/Pore-Builder
Installing collected packages: porebuilder
  Found existing installation: porebuilder 0.1
    Uninstalling porebuilder-0.1:
      Successfully uninstalled porebuilder-0.1
  Running setup.py develop for porebuilder
Successfully installed porebuilder
(mosdef-dev) [Clausius] ~/software/recipes/Pore-Builder
(recipe)$ python -W ignore check-import.py 
Importing from module was a:
	Failure.
Importing from mBuild was a:
Success!

[mattwthompson]

Looks like it also has something to do with the order of importing the module vs importing mbuild

This works:

import mbuild; from porebuilder.porebuilder import GraphenePore

This does not

import porebuilder; from porebuilder.porebuilder import GraphenePore

And also this doesn't work

from mbuild.recipes import GraphenePore