Re: [Distutils] [Python-Dev] how to easily consume just the parts of eggs that are good for you

On 09/04/2008, Phillip J. Eby <pje@telecommunity.com> wrote:

It would be, if .eggs were a packaging format, rather than a binary distribution/runtime format.

Remember "eggs are to Python as jars are to Java" -- a Java .jar doesn't contain documentation either, unless it's needed at runtime. Same for configuration files.

And yet, Java doesn't have an equivalent of easy_install for jar files, to my knowledge. If Python had eggs but no easy_install, maybe this whole discussion wouldn't be taking place. (I know I personally like the idea of egg-as-jar-file, but *hate* the idea of egg-as-dependency-handling-tool-and-everything-else). Paul.