The discussion on #577 resulted in the proposal to amend the Style Guide on Importing Modules to say
- In MDAnalysis.analysis, all imports must be at the top level.
- No analysis module is imported automatically at the MDAnalysis.analysis level to avoid breaking the installation when optional dependencies are missing.
This applies to new code. Old code that is not compliant should be refactored (raise an issue).
(Note: We already do 2 but it's really important so I am saying it here again.)