RE: [Distutils] bdist_wininst

From: Pete Shinners [mailto:pete@visionart.com]
* no documentation files are installed -- is there a way to get those installed somewhere
mmm, a python standard location for documentation would be a big help. all my docs are currently in HTML, but i'm sure many people are using a variety of formats. nonetheless, if python had a standard format/location for documentation i think the all users would benefit. perhaps distutils laying out some sort of resonable standard on its own would be enough to get the whole community to adopt it? (of course, some documentation browsing tools in python would be a nice followup)
Agreed, this would be good. It's not a distutils issue as such, but if the distutils package offered a standard for *where* documentation went, it might help promote some discussion and/or action on defining what *form* documentation should take, etc. Perl currently has a big win here, with POD. Like it or loathe it, it's guaranteed to work for pretty much everything - a bit like man on Unix...
* the installer install directly into \Python20 -- shouldn't it install to \Python20\Lib ? What's the standard here on Windows ?
distutils on windows always installs to this directory. bdist or otherwise. i don't see any need for change?
I asked this once before. I gather that it's a Guido-mandated standard. I dislike it intensely, however. I think that user-installed modules should be segregated from standard ones. The obvious place is <PythonDir>\Lib\site-packages. But that needs site.py to change to handle this directory on Windows, as well as on Unix (I see no logic to why it doesn't already). At the very least, <PythonDir>\Local would be better, with distutils creating the directory, and probably adding a Local.pth, if it doesn't already exist. I hate this default so much that I *always* download sources, and do python setup.py build, and then install by hand. This is stupid. At the absolute minimum, the install target should allow specifying an alternative target. And the wininst installer needs to offer the user a choice of install directory. <end rant> Paul.

From: "Moore, Paul" <Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.com>
distutils on windows always installs to this directory. bdist or otherwise. i don't see any need for change?
I asked this once before. I gather that it's a Guido-mandated standard. I dislike it intensely, however. I think that user-installed modules should be segregated from standard ones. The obvious place is <PythonDir>\Lib\site-packages. But that needs site.py to change to handle this directory on Windows, as well as on Unix (I see no logic to why it doesn't already). At the very least, <PythonDir>\Local would be better, with distutils creating the directory, and probably adding a Local.pth, if it doesn't already exist.
I hate this default so much that I *always* download sources, and do python setup.py build, and then install by hand. This is stupid.
At the absolute minimum, the install target should allow specifying an alternative target. And the wininst installer needs to offer the user a choice of install directory.
wininst once had such an option. I removed it because of Greg's suggestion: The developer can override it by using the 'extra_path' option to the setup function. Thomas

Thomas Heller wrote:
From: "Moore, Paul" <Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.com>
distutils on windows always installs to this directory. bdist or otherwise. i don't see any need for change?
I asked this once before. I gather that it's a Guido-mandated standard. I dislike it intensely, however. I think that user-installed modules should be segregated from standard ones. The obvious place is <PythonDir>\Lib\site-packages. But that needs site.py to change to handle this directory on Windows, as well as on Unix (I see no logic to why it doesn't already). At the very least, <PythonDir>\Local would be better, with distutils creating the directory, and probably adding a Local.pth, if it doesn't already exist.
I hate this default so much that I *always* download sources, and do python setup.py build, and then install by hand. This is stupid.
At the absolute minimum, the install target should allow specifying an alternative target. And the wininst installer needs to offer the user a choice of install directory.
wininst once had such an option. I removed it because of Greg's suggestion:
The developer can override it by using the 'extra_path' option to the setup function.
I guess it would be possible to put this option into setup.cfg, but we'll still need some standard... otherwise all packages will end up using their own little twist. There's one catch though: extra_path would only be necessary for Windows installations and not for Unix ones. -- Marc-Andre Lemburg ______________________________________________________________________ Company: http://www.egenix.com/ Consulting: http://www.lemburg.com/ Python Pages: http://www.lemburg.com/python/
participants (3)
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M.-A. Lemburg
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Moore, Paul
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Thomas Heller