[Python-Dev] "setuptools has divided the Python community"

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 2009-03-27 13:58, David Cournapeau wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 9:49 PM, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> 
>> I think that esp. the bdist_* commands help developers a lot by
>> removing the need to know how to build e.g. RPMs or Windows
>> installers and let distutils deal with it.
> 
> I think it is a big dangerous to build rpm/deb without knowing how to
> build them, because contrary to windows .exe, rpm/deb install things
> system-wide, and you could easily break something. I don't think you
> can build deb/rpm without knowing quite a lot about them.

Well, at least the bdist_rpm command did a pretty good job: RedHat
used the RPM spec generated by it to ship egenix-mx-base in their
distribution.

>> (*) I've had a go at this a few months ago and then found out
>> that the egg format itself is not documented anywhere. As a result
>> you have to dig deep into setuptools to find out which files
>> are needed and where. That's something that needs to change
>> (Tarek is already working on a PEP for this, AFAIK).
> 
> It is "documented" here:
> 
> http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EggFormats

Thanks for the link. I must have missed that in my search for
a format spec.

> But as said in the preambule, people are not supposed to rely on this.
> I for once would be really happy if  I could build eggs without
> setuptools - for example to build eggs from scons, scripts, etc...

Right, the .egg format should be a formal PEP standard.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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