On Jul 22, 2007, at 12:51 PM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
At 09:09 AM 7/22/2007 -0400, Jim Fulton wrote:
People should *not* misspell pages when using setuptools. They should certainly not use misspelled package names in requirements.
People do all sorts of things they shouldn't. That doesn't stop them blaming other people for their mistakes.
It's said that a 10% improvement in ease-of-use can double a product's users. Case sensitivity is a barrier to entry for new users, and setuptools can't afford any additional entry barriers.
I totally don't buy this in a case like this. People installing packages with setuptools are technical users. We expect them to write Python scripts.
A significant part of setuptools' audience includes people who are new to Python, or at least new to installing or distributing Python modules, and quite a lot of setuptools features are aimed squarely at that audience. This happens to be one of them.
I don't think that encouraging use of case insensitive names by people who are about start learning a language that uses case sensitive names is doing them any favors.
In my strongly help opinion, allowing imprecise names in requirements and setuptools command if of negative value.
I understand that perspective. But practicality beats purity, and this is absolutely a "worse is better" type of situation.
Obviously we disagree.
Setuptools has lots of features that are targeted at different audiences. There are plenty of features targeted at the group you're in, don't begrudge the other groups their features. :)
I don't think you are helping them. Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@zope.com Python Powered! CTO (540) 361-1714 http://www.python.org Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com http://www.zope.org