On 22/03/2008, Phillip J. Eby <pje@telecommunity.com> wrote:
This probably needs to be refined a little. Exclusive right is too strong, and it goes against Paul Moore's desire for using a single tool.
Huh? How's that? Don't forget that I'm on Windows, and on Windows there is no "system tool" - just bdist_wininst, bdist_msi and easy_install. The fact that bdist_wininst and bdist_msi link into the system UI for listing and uninstallation doesn't make packages using them "system packages". If easy_install put add/remove program info in place, my "single tool" would be the add/remove list. If something else (for example, the proposed index of installed package, with a suitable UI) is deemed the "single tool", then bdist_wininst and bdist_msi have to be changed to respect that. The only fly in this ointment is bdist_msi, which uses MSI format, which is a lot nearer to a Windows "system packager" than anything else. Whether that means bdist_msi can't be changed to work with a package index rather than (or as well as, I don't care) add/remove, I don't know.
Unfortunately, a warning message might then need to be localized. So this idea still needs some work.
The "one way to do it" uninstaller should be able to uninstall everything. If it needs to call the system uninstaller for a specific package, there's nothing wrong with doing that. But why tell me to run a different command? Just do it for me. I only want one UI, the rest is implementation detail. (Others may have different preferences, so a choice may need to be made. If so, and if it goes against me, fair enough, I have to decide what to do about that for myself. But I'd rather force people to tell me "no", than leave people thinking they satisfied me and wondering why I'm still complaining...) Paul.