Terry J. Reedy added the comment:> Steven: "You should use `__builtin__` in Python 2 and `builtins` in > Python 3."  I presume this is for import statements.My understanding is that __builtins__ is intended to be for the private use of the CPython interpreter only. It may not be available in other Pythons, or in the future, and code that needs access to the built-ins should treat it as a regular module and import it via __builtin__ in Python 2 and builtins in Python 3.In other words, unless you're the CPython interpreter, don't touch __builtins__.I don't know whether IDLE is considered sufficiently closely integrated to CPython that it is allowed to rely on __builtins__, but for an ordinary module (even one in the stdlib) I wouldn't touch it at all.