The Python Packaging Ecosystem (of Nick) Support for other programming languages
Dear Nick and other distutils listeners, Nick wrote this about seven months ago: http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht... I love Python and I use it daily. On the other hand there are other interesting programming languages out there. Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages? Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future. What do you think? Regards, Thomas -- Thomas Guettler http://www.thomas-guettler.de/
I wrote this 5 years ago, and its largely still true as far as I can tell of the surrounding systems. Snappy-core for instance, isn't targeting MacOS X or Windows (last I checked anyhow ...) https://rbtcollins.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/why-platform-specific-package-sy... -Rob On 7 April 2017 at 02:32, Thomas Güttler <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote:
Dear Nick and other distutils listeners,
Nick wrote this about seven months ago:
http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht...
I love Python and I use it daily.
On the other hand there are other interesting programming languages out there.
Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages?
Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future.
What do you think?
Regards, Thomas
-- Thomas Guettler http://www.thomas-guettler.de/ _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - Distutils-SIG@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
On Apr 6, 2017 7:32 AM, "Thomas Güttler" <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote: Dear Nick and other distutils listeners, Nick wrote this about seven months ago: http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packag ing-ecosystem.html I love Python and I use it daily. On the other hand there are other interesting programming languages out there. Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages? Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future. What do you think? This is basically what conda attempts to do. It's nice in some ways, but does also have limitations. In any case this isn't a very useful thing to post here? Distutils and pip and pypi aren't going anywhere, and the folks here are all at their limit trying to keep them from falling over, so taking up time with these super vague blue sky ideas is a bit rude. -n
Am 06.04.2017 um 17:22 schrieb Nathaniel Smith:
On Apr 6, 2017 7:32 AM, "Thomas Güttler" <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de <mailto:guettliml@thomas-guettler.de>> wrote:
Dear Nick and other distutils listeners,
Nick wrote this about seven months ago:
http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht... <http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht...>
I love Python and I use it daily.
On the other hand there are other interesting programming languages out there.
Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages?
Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future.
What do you think?
This is basically what conda attempts to do. It's nice in some ways, but does also have limitations.
In any case this isn't a very useful thing to post here?
For me it was very useful. I was not aware of the paypal post about python packaging. Yes, it was useful.
Distutils and pip and pypi aren't going anywhere,
That's new to me. I guess I misunderstood what you said (I am not a native speaker). I understood "There is no progress, and won't be in the future". That's new to me. I saw several new pip versions in the past. I thought there was progress.
.. and the folks here are all at their limit trying to keep them from falling over, so taking up time with these super vague blue sky ideas is a bit rude.
What is the problem if "falling over" happens? Is there no easier solution then going at its limit? Why is having blue sky ideas rude? AFAIK the word "rude" means "offensively impolite or bad-mannered." I personally like the tongue spoken at the linux-kernel mailing list (or systemd). Yes, the people there are impolite and bad-mannered. People speak you what they think and feel. Why not? I think being polite in tech related discussions slows down progress. Look at my signature. Tell me what's wrong: Hit me with arguments. Regards, Thomas Güttler -- I am looking for feedback for my personal programming guidelines: https://github.com/guettli/programming-guidelines
On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Thomas Güttler <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote:
Am 06.04.2017 um 17:22 schrieb Nathaniel Smith:
On Apr 6, 2017 7:32 AM, "Thomas Güttler" <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de <mailto:guettliml@thomas-guettler.de>> wrote:
Dear Nick and other distutils listeners,
Nick wrote this about seven months ago:
http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht... <http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht...>
I love Python and I use it daily.
On the other hand there are other interesting programming languages out there.
Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages?
Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future.
What do you think?
This is basically what conda attempts to do. It's nice in some ways, but does also have limitations.
In any case this isn't a very useful thing to post here?
For me it was very useful. I was not aware of the paypal post about python packaging. Yes, it was useful.
My point was it's wasting the time of the many many people who read this list, who are trying to move Python packaging forward for the millions of people who use Python. Justifying that by saying your message was useful to *you* is... stunningly self-centered. Did your post make *Python* better? If not, maybe think twice next time before posting?
Distutils and pip and pypi aren't going anywhere,
That's new to me. I guess I misunderstood what you said (I am not a native speaker). I understood "There is no progress, and won't be in the future". That's new to me. I saw several new pip versions in the past. I thought there was progress.
My apologies for using an unclear idiom. My sentence means: "they are not going to disappear, or be replaced by something radically different".
.. and the folks here are all at their limit trying to keep them from falling over, so taking up time with these super vague blue sky ideas is a bit rude.
What is the problem if "falling over" happens?
Is there no easier solution then going at its limit?
Why is having blue sky ideas rude? AFAIK the word "rude" means "offensively impolite or bad-mannered."
I personally like the tongue spoken at the linux-kernel mailing list (or systemd). Yes, the people there are impolite and bad-mannered. People speak you what they think and feel. Why not? I think being polite in tech related discussions slows down progress.
Look at my signature. Tell me what's wrong: Hit me with arguments.
If you don't care how your words effect others then I'm not really interested in talking to you, except to urge you to reconsider that. -n -- Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org
On 7 April 2017 at 15:26, Thomas Güttler <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote:
Why is having blue sky ideas rude? AFAIK the word "rude" means "offensively impolite or bad-mannered."
Ideas are easy to come by - we have no shortage of them. What's difficult to come by is the time and energy needed to work through the complexities of turning ideas for improvement into practical enhancements that can be rolled out and incrementally adopted by the community. Hearing from folks that say "I'm working on a project to improve X, can you give me some advice?" is generally wonderful, but "Someone (else) should totally build this thing that I wish existed" is typically just noise, and "I have never personally done anything for any of you, but I want you all to imagine you work for me and have to work on the things I care about" is extraordinarily self-entitled behaviour. Regards, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
Hi, On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 6:55 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com> wrote:
On 7 April 2017 at 15:26, Thomas Güttler <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote:
Why is having blue sky ideas rude? AFAIK the word "rude" means "offensively impolite or bad-mannered."
Ideas are easy to come by - we have no shortage of them.
Bad ideas are surely easy to come by, but, at least in my experience, it often takes a bit of discussion to work out which ones these are.
Hearing from folks that say "I'm working on a project to improve X, can you give me some advice?" is generally wonderful, but "Someone (else) should totally build this thing that I wish existed" is typically just noise, and "I have never personally done anything for any of you, but I want you all to imagine you work for me and have to work on the things I care about" is extraordinarily self-entitled behaviour.
Wishing to avoid this criticism I humbly submit the pip / manylinux / macOS packaging work I do for the scientific Python stack. That done, as you imply, no-one can force us volunteers to do any particular piece of work, so, although self-entitlement may be unattractive, it's not particularly threatening. Of course, sometimes, people who aren't doing anything at present, suggest ideas that are useful, and with the right encouragement, actually do start to help. I've certainly seen that happen with my other developer hats on. Cheers, Matthew
On 8 April 2017 at 20:05, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 6:55 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com> wrote:
On 7 April 2017 at 15:26, Thomas Güttler <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote:
Why is having blue sky ideas rude? AFAIK the word "rude" means "offensively impolite or bad-mannered."
Ideas are easy to come by - we have no shortage of them.
Bad ideas are surely easy to come by, but, at least in my experience, it often takes a bit of discussion to work out which ones these are.
Indeed, but it's an entirely different matter to post suggestions for specific, concrete, ideas for changes to the Python plugin management ecosystem than it is to post: """ Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages? Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future. """ While citing a post that specifically explains why such a project would be out of scope for PyPA & distutils-sig, since we maintain and provide plugin management tools and interoperability standards for Python runtimes, not general purpose infrastructure management for arbitrary software components. It isn't like we don't already know that problem exists, nor that we consider it unimportant in the larger scheme of things - it's just not a problem we're attempting to solve or help with *here*.
Hearing from folks that say "I'm working on a project to improve X, can you give me some advice?" is generally wonderful, but "Someone (else) should totally build this thing that I wish existed" is typically just noise, and "I have never personally done anything for any of you, but I want you all to imagine you work for me and have to work on the things I care about" is extraordinarily self-entitled behaviour.
Wishing to avoid this criticism I humbly submit the pip / manylinux / macOS packaging work I do for the scientific Python stack.
Thank you for that work!
That done, as you imply, no-one can force us volunteers to do any particular piece of work, so, although self-entitlement may be unattractive, it's not particularly threatening.
Yeah, it only becomes irritating when it's persistent - most folks are able to recognise that they should drop a topic in a given venue when nobody else expresses any interest in it, and it's a rare few that will still attempt to persist even after they're explicitly told to drop it as being off-topic.
Of course, sometimes, people who aren't doing anything at present, suggest ideas that are useful, and with the right encouragement, actually do start to help. I've certainly seen that happen with my other developer hats on.
Likewise (and in terms of my own contributions to PyPA/distutils-sig, they've been far more extensive in the form of mentoring and support for the folks actually doing the work than they have been in terms of code or documentation), and it's why the first reaction to off-topic posts should always be to default to coaching folks on the purpose of the channel. It's only in light of persistent attempts to reshape the channel to a different purpose without first actively contributing to helping the group to achieve its existing purpose that problems really start to arise (as in this thread). Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
On 7 April 2017 at 00:32, Thomas Güttler <guettliml@thomas-guettler.de> wrote:
Dear Nick and other distutils listeners,
Nick wrote this about seven months ago:
http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2016/09/python-packaging-ecosystem.ht...
I love Python and I use it daily.
On the other hand there are other interesting programming languages out there.
Why not do "thinking in sets" here and see python just as one item in the list of a languages?
Let's dream: All languages should be supported in the ever best packaging solution of the future.
What do you think?
Package management that is both language and platform independent is precisely the role conda fills, but as I explain in the post, that doesn't eliminate the need for a language specific plugin manager for Python runtimes (which is the role pip fills), and nor does it eliminate the need for platform specific component managers (which is the role filled by tools like apt-get, yum/dnf, OneGet, etc). The language independent packaging problem is *way* out of scope for distutils-sig as an entity though - while it's a genuine use case, there are other more appropriate communities for discussing it (such as those related to conda development). Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
participants (5)
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Matthew Brett -
Nathaniel Smith -
Nick Coghlan -
Robert Collins -
Thomas Güttler