On Sep 20, 2006, at 9:47 PM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
Thus, I'm more inclined to make it *dumber* in future, not smarter. On Unix platforms, with Python 2.4 and up, one could do something like:
PYTHONPATH=setuptools*.egg python -m easy_install -a setuptools*.egg
This may not be a bad idea for setuptools, but I'm actually creating a front-end installer for TurboGears (that currently includes ez_setup.py in the file). I realized that TG's install docs were dealing with things that could easily be checked at install time. (Python version, are you in a directory with a "turbogears" subdirectory, may even check things like "are you running random linux distro X that has problem Y?) This script should ultimately eliminate our "having trouble installing doc?" and reduce the TurboGears installation instructions to: 1. get python 2. download tgsetup.py 3. run it This deals with having an appropriately set find-links, being able to upgrade setuptools as needed, and will also handle offline install packages when we have them. I think a lot of this is because setuptools is still new and not yet a standard part of Python. Once we're past the bootstrapping period, the need for this script will likely disappear entirely. But, for now, it's nice having a customized script to give people a single, simple install command for first time installs and upgrades. (You might be wondering how this relates to your message. D'oh! My point is actually that I have a use case for ez_setup.py as it currently stands.) Kevin