Mailman 3 March 2008 - Python-Dev

The Breaking of distutils and PyPI for Python 3000?
by Jeff Rush March 22, 2008

March 22, 2008

As I'm digging into packaging issues here at PyCon, a couple of Python 3000 related matters occur to me. As I'm new to the Python 3000 development, if these have already been addressed in prior discussions, I apologize for your time. 1. What is the plan for PyPI when Python 3.0 comes out and dependencies start getting satisfied from distribution across the great divide, e.g. a 3.0-specific package pulls from PyPI a 2.x-specific package to meet some need? Are there plans to fork PyPI, apply special tags to uploads or what? While binary distributions are tagged with the Python version, source distributions are not. And of course a dependency expression as it stands today for "SomePackage > 2.4" may pull 3.0 to satisfy it. 2. There have been attempts over the years to fix distutils, with the last one being in 2006 by Anthony Baxter. He stated that a major hurdle was the strong demand to respect backward compatibility and he finally gave up. One of the purposes of Python 3.0 was the freedom to break backward compatibility for the sake of "doing the right thing". So is it now permissible to give distutils a good reworking and stop letting compatibility issues hold us back? -Jeff

12 23

SVN FAQ for Windows users
by Giampaolo Rodola' March 22, 2008

March 22, 2008

I noticed that http://www.python.org/dev/faq/#how-do-i-apply-a-patch ...does not contain instruction for Windows user willing to apply a patch starting from a .diff file. Since Tortoise SVN is the most common choice I tried to describe the steps to apply a patch by using it. This could be added in the same section (5.2) righ after the UNIX instructions. --- snippet --- If you're using Windows make sure you have TortoiseSVN installed. Right-click on the folder containing the trunk source code, expand the TortoiseSVN submenu and select 'Apply Patch...'. Browse to the patch file and select it, then right click on the file appearing in the 'File Patches' window and click on 'Patch selected'. After you're done, close the TortoiseMerge window. --- /snippet --- Hope this helps.

4 5

Re: [Python-Dev] PEP 365 (Adding the pkg_resources module)
by Phillip J. Eby March 22, 2008

March 22, 2008

At 08:34 PM 3/20/2008 +0000, Paul Moore wrote: >I then went on to say that putting dependency information in setup.exe >and expecting users to use automatic dependency resolution encourages >developers to omit dependency details from documentation (to an extent >I can't quantify, but I believe is non-zero). That lack of >documentation "forces" me to rely on the automatic process. THAT is >the thing that removes my choice, not easy_install's ability to skip >dependency checking. Ah. Fair enough. So, if we get PyPI to display that information, that should fix this problem for you? >People are starting to omit distributing >bdist_wininst installers in favour of eggs only. You mean, they're shipping a .win32.egg, but not an .exe? > And you cannot (to my >knowledge) convert an egg into a bdist_wininst installer, Not at the moment, no. It seems like it ought to be *possible*, though, since the reverse translation can be done. Eggs are more restrictive in what they can include, so the reverse step actually ought to be relatively easy. Indeed, I would think that it could be done by a standalone tool without even using setuptools. All that really needs to happen (I believe) is that the zipfile directory needs all its names prepended with PURELIB or PLATLIB, and then add the appropriate prefix .exe and bdist_wininst extra data on the front of the restructured zip file. In fact, it should probably be possible to write such a tool by subclassing the distutils bdist_wininst command and overriding the run() and get_inidata() methods, using the existing create_exe() method to do that part of the magic. The other tool that would be handy to have, would be one that unpacks eggs into standard distutils-style installation. > > Personally, I'm not very thrilled with the number of complaints on > > this thread that could be resolved by RTFMing. >... >Honestly, I'm trying to help improve (by my measure of improvement, >certainly) setuptools. I've done as much (more!) homework as I feel is >appropriate (no, I haven't studied the whole manual all the way >through). Being treated as if it's my fault, and I haven't done >enough, is both discouraging and to be honest, somewhat offensive. My comment wasn't aimed specifically at you; you're only one of many people today who have appeared to state that something or other wasn't possible or documented, described optional behavior as required, etc. Addressing each and every one point by point looks petty, but then lumping them together like that makes it look like I'm picking on you specifically. Sorry about that. In any event, I'm not saying that anyone hasn't done enough or that it's their fault. The fact that I'm not thrilled about some of the things said in the thread doesn't somehow magically invalidate other people's frustrations, nor was it my intent to accuse you (or anyone) of making up their problems. I'm just expressing *my* frustration.

4 4

Request for another build slave
by Trent Nelson March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

Can someone set me up with a build slave for an x86 FreeBSD box (6.2-STABLE, although we'll be migrating to 7.x in a week or so)? Thanks. [Suggestion: perhaps we could set up a python-buildbots(a)python.org list for discussing buildbot administrative minutiae, rather than polluting python-dev?] Trent.

2 1

Re: [Python-Dev] PEP 365 (Adding the pkg_resources module)
by Phillip J. Eby March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

At 12:33 PM 3/21/2008 +0000, Paul Moore wrote: >On 21/03/2008, Terry Reedy <tjreedy(a)udel.edu> wrote: > > The standard (and to me, preferable) way of dealing with such > things is to > > have an 'installation manager' that can reinstall as well as delete and > > that has a check box for various things to delete. This is what Python > > needs. > >I'd dispute strongly that this is a "standard". It may be preferable, >but I'm not sure where you see evidence of it being a standard. I presume he means that there are a lot of entries in his Add/Remove Programs that work like that, and that it's an emerging standard for Windows. (Certainly I've seen quite a few entries like that in mine, although more often than not they only have one checkbox!) >Could I also point out that *if* such a standard is set up for Python, >bdist_wininst and bdist_msi should be modified to follow it. >Otherwise, it's not a standard, more of competing approach. The best thing to do would be to get a standard (ala PEP 262, but modified by the benefit of experience now) for tracking installed Python package distributions. Then we can standardize on platform tools for managing this data, and include them in the relevant platform distributions. (And that would include making bdist_wininst and bdist_msi follow this installation DB standard.)

2 1

Summary of Tracker Issues
by Tracker March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

ACTIVITY SUMMARY (03/14/08 - 03/21/08) Tracker at http://bugs.python.org/ To view or respond to any of the issues listed below, click on the issue number. Do NOT respond to this message. 1795 open (+106) / 12476 closed (+50) / 14271 total (+156) Open issues with patches: 529 Average duration of open issues: 714 days. Median duration of open issues: 1217 days. Open Issues Breakdown open 1773 (+106) pending 22 ( +0) Issues Created Or Reopened (157) ________________________________ Add a factorial function 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2138 reopened rhettinger os.path.normpath over-normalizes 03/14/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2289 created eljay451 [PATCH] Update Lib/distutils/sysconfig.py to handle x64 Windows 03/14/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2290 created Trent.Nelson patch Raise a Py3K warning for catching non-BaseException exceptions 03/14/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2291 created zotbar1234 Missing *-unpacking generalizations 03/15/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2292 created twouters patch, patch Missing case / switch / evaluate 03/15/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2293 created dbodin Bug in Pickle protocol involving __setstate__ 03/15/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2294 created gpk cPickle corner case - docs or bug? 03/15/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2295 created gpk [PATCH] Tcl/Tk 8.4.16 patches needed to get an x64 Windows build 03/15/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2296 created Trent.Nelson patch, 64bit Patch for fatal stack overflow in Windows caused by -v 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2297 created dgreiman patch Patch for "string without null bytes" check in getargs.c 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2298 created dgreiman patch Minor typos in newtypes.rst 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2299 created dgreiman patch make html fails 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2300 created tiran [Py3k] No text shown when SyntaxError (when not UTF8) 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2301 created ocean-city Uses of SocketServer.BaseServer.shutdown have a race 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2302 created jyasskin patch, patch isinstance is 4x as slow as in 2.5 because the common case raise 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2303 created jyasskin patch subprocess under windows fails to quote properly when shell=True 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2304 created tim.golden patch Update What's new in 2.6 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2305 created gvanrossum Update What's new in 3.0 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2306 created gvanrossum Decide what to do with bytes/str when transferring pickles betwe 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2307 created gvanrossum Make structseq more like collections.namedtuple 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2308 created gvanrossum Add xturtle to the standard library? 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2309 created gvanrossum Reorganize the 3.0 Misc/NEWS file 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2310 created gvanrossum Update the ACKS file 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2311 created gvanrossum Update PEP 3135 (super()) 03/16/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2312 created gvanrossum correct int / long object type casts 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2313 created JosephArmbruster patch Test issue 03/16/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2314 created loewis TimedRotatingFileHandler does not account for daylight savings t 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2315 created ceder TimedRotatingFileHandler names files incorrectly if nothing is l 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2316 created ceder TimedRotatingFileHandler logic for removing files wrong 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2317 created ceder TimedRotatingFileHandler: rotate every month, or every year 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2318 created ceder abc.py:ABCMeta.__instancecheck__ broken for old style classes 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2319 created schmir Race condition in subprocess using stdin 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2320 created Pankrat return more memory from unicode objects to system 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2321 created nnorwitz patch, patch Clean up getargs.c and its formatting possibilities 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2322 created brett.cannon Make structseq's API look more like a nametuple. 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2323 created brett.cannon Document that 2.6 pickles of strings turn into pickles of unicod 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2324 created brett.cannon isinstance(anything, MetaclassThatDefinesInstancecheck) raises i 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2325 created jyasskin Doc isnumeric and isdecimal for the unicode object 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2326 created brett.cannon patch Backport keyword-only arguments to 2.6 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2327 created brett.cannon 26backport Class **kwds broken (PEP 3115) 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2328 created jackdied ImportError: No module named _bsddb 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2329 created ddk Update PEP 3000 with new release schedule 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2330 created gvanrossum Backport parameter annotations 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2331 created brett.cannon 26backport Renaming of attributes on functions need to be backported. 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2332 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport dict comprehensions 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2333 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport set comprehensions 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2334 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport set literals 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2335 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport PEP 3114 (__next__) 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2336 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport oct() and hex() to use __index__ 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2337 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport reload() moving to imp.reload() 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2338 created brett.cannon 26backport Backport intern() -> sys.intern() 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2339 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Backport PEP 3132 (extended iterable unpacking) 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2340 created brett.cannon 26backport Raise a Py3K warning when raise non-BaseException exceptions 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2341 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Comparing between disparate types should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2342 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Raise a Py3K warning when using a float where an int is expected 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2343 created brett.cannon 26backport Using an iteration variable outside a list comprehension needs a 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2344 created brett.cannon 26backport Using an exception variable outside an 'except' clause should ra 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2345 created brett.cannon 26backport Py3K warn against using __members__ 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2346 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Py3K warn for using __methods__ 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2347 created brett.cannon 26backport Py3K warn using file.softspace 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2348 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Py3K warn against assigning to True/False 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2349 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Warn against importing 'exceptions' 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2350 created brett.cannon 26backport Using __(get|set|del)slice__ needs a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2351 created brett.cannon 26backport Use of __oct__/__hex__ should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2352 created brett.cannon 26backport Use of file.xreadlines() should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2353 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport cmp argument to list.sort()/sorted() should raise a Py3K warning 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2354 reopened rhettinger patch, 26backport Using buffer() should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2355 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport sys.exitfunc should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2356 created brett.cannon 26backport sys.exc_{type,values,traceback} should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2357 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Using sys.exc_clear should raise a Py3K warning 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2358 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport A Py3K warning for array.array.{read,write} is needed 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2359 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Fixer for itertools.imap() -> map() 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2360 created brett.cannon 26backport Fixer for itertools.ifilter() -> filter() 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2361 created brett.cannon 26backport Fixer for itertools.izip() -> zip() 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2362 created brett.cannon 26backport Fixer for itertools.ifilterfalse() -> itertools.filterfalse() 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2363 created brett.cannon 26backport Patch to make 2to3 testing easier 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2364 created David Wolever patch Fixer for filter(None, ...) -> filter(bool, ...) 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2365 created brett.cannon 26backport Fixer for new metaclass syntax is needed 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2366 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Fixer to handle new places where parentheses are needed 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2367 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Fixer needed to change __builtin__ -> builtins 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2368 created brett.cannon 26backport Fixer for new integer literals are needed 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2369 created brett.cannon 26backport operator.{isCallable,sequenceIncludes} needs a fixer 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2370 created brett.cannon patch, 26backport Patch for catching exceptions that do not inherit from BaseExcep 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2371 created taicki patch Pubkey 03/17/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2372 created David Wolever Raise Py3K warnings for comparisons that changed 03/17/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2373 created bethard patch, 26backport Use of builtin file should give Py3k warning 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2374 created benjamin.peterson patch PYTHON3PATH environment variable to supersede PYTHONPATH for mul 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2375 created glyph Set up "supported"-only buildbot waterfall view 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2376 created exarkun Replace import.c with a pure Python implementation 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2377 created brett.cannon UnboundLocalError when trying to raise exceptions inside execfil 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2378 created jseutter Raise a Py3K warning for __getitem__ or __getslice__ on exceptio 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2379 created belopolsky patch Raise a Py3K warning for catching nested tuples with non-BaseExc 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2380 created belopolsky patch, easy, 26backport test_subprocess fails if your sys.executable is on a path with a 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2381 created lanny patch, easy [Py3k] SyntaxError cursor shifted if multibyte character is in l 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2382 created ocean-city patch Remove old XXX comment in stat.py 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2383 created jseutter patch [Py3k] line number is wrong after encoding declaration 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2384 created ocean-city run_setup can fail if the setup script uses __file__ 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2385 created tarek patch os.strerror missing/HAVE_STRERROR not defined 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2386 created schmir patch cStringIO and unicode 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2387 created vdupras patch Compiler warnings when using UCS4 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2388 created benjamin.peterson Array pickling exposes internal memory representation of element 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2389 created hniksic Merge 2.6 ACKS with 3.0 ACKS 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2390 created gvanrossum easy Sean is testing tracker bug. 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2392 created jafo Backport buffer interface in Python 3.0 to Python 2.6 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2393 created teoliphant [Py3k] Finish the memoryview object implementation 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2394 created teoliphant [Py3k] struct module changes of PEP 3118 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2395 created teoliphant Backport memoryview object to Python 2.6 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2396 created teoliphant Backport 3.0 struct module changes to 2.6 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2397 created teoliphant test_errno fails with unexpected error value EREMOTEIO 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2398 created andybalaam patch Patches for Tools/msi 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2399 created teoliphant patch from .foo import * should work 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2400 created nnorwitz Solaris: ctypes tests being skipped despite following #1516 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2401 created jafo get rid of warnings in regrtest with -3 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2402 created bethard Add figleaf coverage metrics 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2403 created jseutter patch, patch Backport ctypes support for buffer protocol to Python 2.6 (ref i 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2404 created teoliphant Drop w9xpopen and all dependencies 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2405 created Trent.Nelson Improvement suggestions for the gzip module documentation 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2406 created madarche warnings.filterwarnings() not isolated between tests 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2407 created jseutter patch, patch types module can be implemented only in Python 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2408 created benjamin.peterson patch regrtest should not just skip imports that fail 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2409 created nnorwitz patch absolute import doesn't work for standard python modules 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2410 created dangyogi test_nis.py fails if NIS is not configured or used 03/18/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2411 created MichaelBishop patch Check 2to3 for support of print function. 03/18/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2412 created eric.smith os.strerror does not check for out of range argument 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2413 created belopolsky patch Fix implicit relative imports 03/19/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2414 created loewis bytes() should respect __bytes__ 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2415 created barry % string formatting does not support %b 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2416 created eric.smith [py3k] Integer floor division (//): small int check omitted 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2417 created tjreedy patch Incorrect LaTeX generated (Python 2.6a1) 03/19/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2418 created vmanis1 Remove all IRIX dependant modules from aifc module 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2419 created MichaelBishop Faq 4.28 -- Trailing comas 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2420 created dubiel doc\make.bat fails for htmlhelp because of hardcoded filename 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2421 created tim.golden patch Automatically disable pymalloc when running under valgrind 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2422 created jamesh patch test_smtplib.py no longer butt slow 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2423 created jseutter patch, patch Logging module hides user code errors (bare except) 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2424 created bradallen test_py3kwarn doesn't use sys.py3kwarning 03/19/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2425 created jeff.balogh patch pysqlite provides no interface for database SQL dump 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2426 created kippesp patch 2to3 should translate itertools.imap into generator expression, 03/19/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2427 created dangyogi 2to3 deletes # comments before "from __future__ import with_stat 03/19/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2428 created dangyogi Patch for test_urllib2_net moving tests to use a local server 03/19/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2429 created fuzzyman patch Stop test_format.py from executing as side effect of import 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2430 created jseutter patch, patch 2to3 is rather slow 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2431 created David Wolever patch DictReader does not suport line_num 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2432 created ivanoe Merge audio modules 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2433 created MichaelBishop Improve platform.win32_ver() support for Python installations wi 03/20/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2434 created lemburg pybench does not run anymore 03/20/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2435 created pitrou Should __future__ print_function be valid in 3.0? 03/20/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2436 created eric.smith Distutils runtime_library_dirs broken on Windows 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2437 created janssen subprocess.Popen with wildcard arguments 03/20/08 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2438 created pbrandt Patch to add a get_data function to pkgutil 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2439 created pmoore patch Issues with getargs_n(), PyNumber_Index and PyLong_AsSize_t. 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2440 created Trent.Nelson patch, patch Mac build_install.py script fetches unavailable SQLite version 03/20/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2441 created carlosedp patch Undocumented features added to 2.6 03/21/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2442 created akuchling uninitialized access to va_list 03/21/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2443 created rolland Adding __iter__ to class Values of module optparse 03/21/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2444 created gpolo patch Use The CygwinCCompiler Under Cygwin 03/21/08 http://bugs.python.org/issue2445 created dstanek patch Issues Now Closed (98) ______________________ zlib.crc32() and adler32() return value 174 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1202 gregory.p.smith 64bit, easy doctest EXCEPTION_RE can't handle preceding output 147 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1312 jafo patch XML codec 132 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1399 jafo patch func alloca inside ctypes lib needs #include <alloca.h> on solar 112 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1506 theller patch os.system() fails for commands with multiple quoted file names 112 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1524 jafo IDLE installation problems and no message errors 106 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1544 jafo Backport PEP 3141 to 2.6 85 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1689 jyasskin VC6 build patch for release-maint25 78 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1720 ocean-city patch .pypirc not found on windows 74 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1741 jafo easy ZIP files with archive comments longer than 4k not recognized as 71 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1746 jafo OptionMenu class is defined both in Tkinter and Tix 38 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2059 jafo pprint._safe_repr() unsafe on ordering differently types objects 36 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2074 percivall patch __import__ with fromlist=[''] causes double initialization of mo 36 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2090 hauser Blocking sockets take entirely too long to timeout 31 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2132 jafo Pydoc interactive browser misses some docs 32 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2141 ping smtplib.SSLFakeFile hangs forever if "\n" is not encountered 29 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2143 jafo patch pydistutils.cfg won't be found on Windows 25 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2166 jafo Add map, filter, zip to future_builtins 24 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2171 David Wolever code objects should conserve memory 20 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2185 nnorwitz patch, patch [patch] urllib2 hint - disabled ProxyHandler() 24 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2188 jafo urllib.quote() throws KeyError when passed an iterator 24 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2189 jafo Further simplify dict literal bytecode 22 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2197 jafo patch code_hash() can be the same for different code objects 19 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2198 jyasskin ssl module getpeercert returns empty dict when cert_reqs=ssl.CER 20 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2203 jafo Problems using logging module with idle 14 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2216 vsajip patch Py30a3: Possibly confusing message when module detection fails 18 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2219 jafo Search in 2.6 docs does not work 17 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2229 jafo TypeError instead of SyntaxError for syntactically invalid gen e 16 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2238 jafo empty specifier for float.__format__ does not always print at le 7 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2264 eric.smith [Py30a3] xml.parsers.expat recognizes encoding="utf-8" but not e 5 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2278 georg.brandl TextIOWrapper.seekable() always returns False 5 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2282 ping patch Stack overflow exception caused by test_marshal on Windows x64 4 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2286 Trent.Nelson 64bit Problems using logging module with logging.basicConfig(level=log 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2287 vsajip Confusing documentation for urllib.urlopen 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2288 georg.brandl os.path.normpath over-normalizes 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2289 georg.brandl [PATCH] Update Lib/distutils/sysconfig.py to handle x64 Windows 4 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2290 Trent.Nelson patch Raise a Py3K warning for catching non-BaseException exceptions 3 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2291 gvanrossum Missing case / switch / evaluate 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2293 tiran Bug in Pickle protocol involving __setstate__ 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2294 georg.brandl Patch for fatal stack overflow in Windows caused by -v 3 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2297 Trent.Nelson patch Minor typos in newtypes.rst 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2299 georg.brandl patch [Py3k] No text shown when SyntaxError (when not UTF8) 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2301 loewis Decide what to do with bytes/str when transferring pickles betwe 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2307 gvanrossum Add xturtle to the standard library? 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2309 georg.brandl correct int / long object type casts 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2313 jyasskin patch Test issue 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2314 loewis abc.py:ABCMeta.__instancecheck__ broken for old style classes 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2319 jyasskin return more memory from unicode objects to system 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2321 nnorwitz patch, patch Make structseq's API look more like a nametuple. 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2323 rhettinger Document that 2.6 pickles of strings turn into pickles of unicod 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2324 gvanrossum Doc isnumeric and isdecimal for the unicode object 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2326 bethard patch Class **kwds broken (PEP 3115) 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2328 jackdied ImportError: No module named _bsddb 3 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2329 gregory.p.smith Renaming of attributes on functions need to be backported. 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2332 nnorwitz 26backport Backport intern() -> sys.intern() 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2339 rhettinger patch, 26backport Raise a Py3K warning when raise non-BaseException exceptions 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2341 gvanrossum patch, 26backport Comparing between disparate types should raise a Py3K warning 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2342 bethard patch, 26backport Fixer for itertools.imap() -> map() 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2360 David Wolever 26backport Fixer for itertools.ifilter() -> filter() 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2361 David Wolever 26backport Fixer for itertools.izip() -> zip() 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2362 David Wolever 26backport Fixer for itertools.ifilterfalse() -> itertools.filterfalse() 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2363 David Wolever 26backport Patch to make 2to3 testing easier 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2364 loewis patch Fixer for filter(None, ...) -> filter(bool, ...) 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2365 rhettinger 26backport Patch for catching exceptions that do not inherit from BaseExcep 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2371 belopolsky patch Pubkey 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2372 loewis Use of builtin file should give Py3k warning 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2374 benjamin.peterson patch Raise a Py3K warning for __getitem__ or __getslice__ on exceptio 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2379 gvanrossum patch Remove old XXX comment in stat.py 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2383 georg.brandl patch os.strerror missing/HAVE_STRERROR not defined 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2386 belopolsky patch cStringIO and unicode 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2387 georg.brandl patch Sean is testing tracker bug. 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2392 loewis test_errno fails with unexpected error value EREMOTEIO 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2398 andybalaam patch from .foo import * should work 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2400 loewis warnings.filterwarnings() not isolated between tests 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2407 brett.cannon patch, patch test_nis.py fails if NIS is not configured or used 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2411 brett.cannon patch Fix implicit relative imports 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2414 David Wolever Incorrect LaTeX generated (Python 2.6a1) 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2418 vmanis1 test_py3kwarn doesn't use sys.py3kwarning 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2425 brett.cannon patch 2to3 should translate itertools.imap into generator expression, 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2427 rhettinger 2to3 deletes # comments before "from __future__ import with_stat 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2428 David Wolever Improve platform.win32_ver() support for Python installations wi 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2434 lemburg pybench does not run anymore 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2435 amaury.forgeotdarc Should __future__ print_function be valid in 3.0? 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2436 eric.smith subprocess.Popen with wildcard arguments 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2438 skip.montanaro pydoc needs readline completion 2414 days http://bugs.python.org/issue448736 georg.brandl long double causes compiler warnings 2205 days http://bugs.python.org/issue525481 jyasskin Deprecate PyNumber_Check 1973 days http://bugs.python.org/issue628842 nascheme Mach-O gcc optimisation flag can boost performance up to 10% 1774 days http://bugs.python.org/issue735110 jvr test_coercion failing on Panther 1700 days http://bugs.python.org/issue775892 jyasskin sys.exec_prefix does not work 1529 days http://bugs.python.org/issue871747 georg.brandl TclError not a subclass of StandardError 1218 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1068881 nnorwitz add server.shutdown() method to SocketServer 1050 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1193577 jyasskin patch Elemental Security contribution - pgen2 package 874 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1337696 gvanrossum patch Python build fails for gcc 4.x from Gnu 730 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1450807 jyasskin from __future__ import print_function 432 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1633807 eric.smith patch VC6 build patch for trunk 341 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1700463 ocean-city patch chown broken on 64bit 258 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1747858 gregory.p.smith 64bit Make python build with gcc-4.2 on OS X 10.4.9 208 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1779871 jyasskin patch Top Issues Most Discussed (10) ______________________________ 16 Py3K warn against assigning to True/False 4 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue2349 15 tokenize module w/ coding cookie 1806 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue719888 14 Raise a Py3K warning for catching non-BaseException exceptions 3 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue2291 14 improved allocation of PyUnicode objects 55 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue1943 12 Patch to add a get_data function to pkgutil 1 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue2439 9 [py3k] Integer floor division (//): small int check omitted 3 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue2417 8 Raise Py3K warnings for comparisons that changed 4 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue2373 8 [Py3k] No text shown when SyntaxError (when not UTF8) 1 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue2301 8 Missing *-unpacking generalizations 6 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue2292 8 Add a factorial function 4 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue2138

1 0

Re: [Python-Dev] [Python-checkins] r45510 - python/trunk/Lib/pkgutil.py python/trunk/Lib/pydoc.py
by M.-A. Lemburg March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

Phillip.eby wrote: > Author: phillip.eby > Date: Tue Apr 18 02:59:55 2006 > New Revision: 45510 > > Modified: > python/trunk/Lib/pkgutil.py > python/trunk/Lib/pydoc.py > Log: > Second phase of refactoring for runpy, pkgutil, pydoc, and setuptools > to share common PEP 302 support code, as described here: > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-April/063724.html Shouldn't this new module be named "pkglib" to be in line with the naming scheme used for all the other utility modules, e.g. httplib, imaplib, poplib, etc. ? > pydoc now supports PEP 302 importers, by way of utility functions in > pkgutil, such as 'walk_packages()'. It will properly document > modules that are in zip files, and is backward compatible to Python > 2.3 (setuptools installs for Python <2.5 will bundle it so pydoc > doesn't break when used with eggs.) Are you saying that the installation of setuptools in Python 2.3 and 2.4 will then overwrite the standard pydoc included with those versions ? I think that's the wrong way to go if not made an explicit option in the installation process or a separate installation altogether. I bothered by the fact that installing setuptools actually changes the standard Python installation by either overriding stdlib modules or monkey-patching them at setuptools import time. > What has not changed is that pydoc command line options do not support > zip paths or other importer paths, and the webserver index does not > support sys.meta_path. Those are probably okay as limitations. > > Tasks remaining: write docs and Misc/NEWS for pkgutil/pydoc changes, > and update setuptools to use pkgutil wherever possible, then add it > to the stdlib. Add setuptools to the stdlib ? I'm still missing the PEP for this along with the needed discussion touching among other things, the change of the distutils standard "python setup.py install" to install an egg instead of a site package. -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Services directly from the Source (#1, Apr 18 2006) >>> Python/Zope Consulting and Support ... http://www.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC.Zope.Database.Adapter ... http://zope.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ... http://python.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ ::: Try mxODBC.Zope.DA for Windows,Linux,Solaris,FreeBSD for free ! ::::

14 51

Wow, I think I actually *get* it now!
by Phillip J. Eby March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

At 10:08 PM 3/20/2008 +0000, glyph(a)divmod.com wrote (off-list): >No, but in no situation, except one (where I was extremely pressed >for time) was I actually attempting to use setuptools to use any of >its features. My experience of it is: "If a project uses distutils >or apt, installation probably works. If it uses setuptools, it >probably throws a traceback or a wall of text explaining why my >environment is inadequate to perform the installation." Other >people chose to use it and in so doing broke my setup. Manually >copying a few files in these cases was a _lot_ easier than >attempting to diagnose and repair software that I didn't even want to use. > >I am not interesting in packaging or distribution. Far from it: I >run all of my software out of an SVN checkout and I _detest_ being >involved in discussions of deployment or installation. ... >However, the general message of the negative subjective experience I >have had while using setuptools is not FUD. It's an accurate >portrayal of a great deal of frustration. setuptools has, to this >date, not solved a single problem for *me*, personally or >professionally, but it has caused many. distutils, despite its many >flaws, has actually solved quite a few. Actually, this information is VERY helpful. It makes it blindingly obvious to me now that the difference between loving and hating setuptools is whether you're *intentionally* using it, or whether it shows up in your ecosystem uninvited. It also makes the difference in whether you get involved: with no investment in the tool itself, you have minimal motivation to RTFM, ask questions, or fix bugs. And when people in this scenario *do* communicate to me or the distutils-sig, they are much more likely to be impatient and hostile, and more likely to view the system as "fundamentally broken". This makes total sense to me now. I don't have any *solutions* to the problem, mind you, but at least now I understand what before seemed like some sort of bizarre anomaly where literally thousands of people use setuptools and many dozens actually express their happiness with or even love for the system, and then others hate it like they hate Microsoft, or worse. ;-) Meanwhile, from the "outsiders" point of view, setuptools looks like the Matrix or the Borg, happily assimilating the masses, who then start coming to you and say, "But you'll be so much happier once you join us..." ...and off in the distance, you hear a quiet rumbling of zombies chanting "eeeeggs.... eeeeggggs.... mussst havve eggggssss!" :) Hm. So it seems to me that maybe one thing that would help is a "Setuptools Haters' Guide To Setuptools" -- that is, *short* documentation specifically written for people who don't want to use setuptools and want to minimize its impact on their systems. I could probably write something like that fairly easily, now that I have some idea of what to go in it, more than, "the existing documentation sucks". :) Can I count on some non-assimilated persons' help in critiquing such a document and suggesting any topics I miss?

5 4

Re: [Python-Dev] PEP 365 (Adding the pkg_resources module)
by Phillip J. Eby March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

At 10:48 AM 3/19/2008 -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote: >I don't understand PyPI all that well; it seems poor design that the >browsing via keywords is emphasized but there is no easy way to >*search* for a keyword (the list of all packages is not emphasized >enough on the main page -- it occurs in the side bar but not in the >main text). I assume there's a programmatic API (XML-RPC?) but I >haven't found it yet. http://wiki.python.org/moin/CheeseShopXmlRpc There's also a REST API that setuptools uses: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall#package-index-api The API was originally designed for screen-scraping an older version of PyPI, but that has been replaced with a "lite" version served from: http://pypi.python.org/simple/ The "lite" version is intended for tools such as easy_install to process, as it consists strictly of links and can be statically cached. Zope Corp., for example, maintains a static mirror of this API, to guard themselves against PyPI outages and slowdowns, since their buildouts can involve huge numbers of eggs, both their own and external dependencies. >I'd love it if you could write or point me to code that takes a >package name and optional version and returns the URL for the source >archive, and the type (in case it can't be guessed from the filename >or the Content-type header). You can probably do that with the XML-RPC API. There's a function to get the versions of a package, given a (case-sensitive) name, and there's a function to get information for uploaded archives, given a name and a version. I originally intended to use it for the PEP 365 approach, but you can get the necessary information in just one static roundtrip using the REST (/simple) HTML API, if you're willing to parse the URLs for version information. (The catch of course being that distutils source distributions don't have unambiguously parseable filenames.) >Hm. Why not just use the existing convention for running setup.py >after unpacking? This works great in my experience, and has the >advantage of having an easy fallback if you end up having to do this >manually for whatever reason. Because I want bootstrap-ees to be able to use the bootstrap mechanism. For example, I expect at some point that setuptools will use other, non-self-contained packages, and other package managers such as zc.buildout et al also want to depend on setuptools without bundling it. > > * calling the bootstrap module 'bootstrap', as in 'python -m > > bootstrap projectname optionalversion'. The module would expose an > > API to allow it to be used programmatically as well as the command > > line, so that bootstrapped packages can use the bootstrap process to > > locate dependencies if they so desire. (Today's package management > > tools, at least, are all based on setuptools, so if it's not present > > they'll need to download that before beginning their own > > bootstrapping process.) > >This sounds like going beyond bootstrapping. My vision is that you use >the bootstrap module (with the command line you suggest above) once to >install setuptools or the alternate package manager of your choice, >and then you can use easy_install (or whatever alternative) to install >the rest. Well, I noticed that the other package managers were writing bootstrap scripts that then download setuptools' bootstrap script and run it as part of *their* bootstrap process... and then I got to thinking that it sure would be nice for setuptools to not have to be a giant monolithic download if I wanted to start using other packages in it... and that it sure would be nice to get rid of all these bootstrap scripts downloading other bootstrap scripts... and then I wrote PEP 365. :) One other thing that PEP 365 does for these use cases that your approach doesn't, is that pkg_resources could detect whether a desired package of a usable version was *already* installed, and skip it if so. So, we've already scaled back the intended use cases quite a bit, as people will have to write their own "is it already there?" and "is it the right version?" checks. > > Without one or the other, the bootstrap tool would have to grow a > > version parsing scheme of some type, and play guessing games with > > file extensions. (Which is one reason I limited PEP 365's scope to > > downloading eggs actually *uploaded* to PyPI, rather than arbitrary > > packages *linked* from PyPI.) > >There are two version parsers in distutils, referenced by PEP 345, the >PyPI 1.2 metadata standard. Yes, and StrictVersion doesn't parse release candidates. And neither LooseVersion nor StrictVersion supports handling multiple pre/post-release tags correctly. (E.g. "1.1a1dev-r2753") > > So, if I had to propose something right now, I would be inclined > to propose: > > > > * using setuptools' version parsing semantics for interpretation of > > alpha/beta/dev/etc. releases > >Can you point me to the code for this? What is its advantage over >distutils.version? It implements version comparison semantics that are closer to programmer expectations. It has also been far more widely used and exposed to more feedback. distutils.version, as far as I know, is really only used by the PEP 345 metadata standard -- which isn't used by *any* automated tools as far as I know, and I'm not sure how many packages bother declaring it. In addition to alpha/beta/candidate/dev versions, it also supports post-release (patchlevel) tags such as svn revision or date-based tags. Here is the code; the docstring is actually longer than the bits that do anything: def parse_version(s): """Convert a version string to a chronologically-sortable key This is a rough cross between distutils' StrictVersion and LooseVersion; if you give it versions that would work with StrictVersion, then it behaves the same; otherwise it acts like a slightly-smarter LooseVersion. It is *possible* to create pathological version coding schemes that will fool this parser, but they should be very rare in practice. The returned value will be a tuple of strings. Numeric portions of the version are padded to 8 digits so they will compare numerically, but without relying on how numbers compare relative to strings. Dots are dropped, but dashes are retained. Trailing zeros between alpha segments or dashes are suppressed, so that e.g. "2.4.0" is considered the same as "2.4". Alphanumeric parts are lower-cased. The algorithm assumes that strings like "-" and any alpha string that alphabetically follows "final" represents a "patch level". So, "2.4-1" is assumed to be a branch or patch of "2.4", and therefore "2.4.1" is considered newer than "2.4-1", which in turn is newer than "2.4". Strings like "a", "b", "c", "alpha", "beta", "candidate" and so on (that come before "final" alphabetically) are assumed to be pre-release versions, so that the version "2.4" is considered newer than "2.4a1". Finally, to handle miscellaneous cases, the strings "pre", "preview", and "rc" are treated as if they were "c", i.e. as though they were release candidates, and therefore are not as new as a version string that does not contain them, and "dev" is replaced with an '@' so that it sorts lower than than any other pre-release tag. """ parts = [] for part in _parse_version_parts(s.lower()): if part.startswith('*'): if part<'*final': # remove '-' before a prerelease tag while parts and parts[-1]=='*final-': parts.pop() # remove trailing zeros from each series of numeric parts while parts and parts[-1]=='00000000': parts.pop() parts.append(part) return tuple(parts) component_re = re.compile(r'(\d+ | [a-z]+ | \.| -)', re.VERBOSE) replace = {'pre':'c', 'preview':'c','-':'final-','rc':'c','dev':'@'}.get def _parse_version_parts(s): for part in component_re.split(s): part = replace(part,part) if not part or part=='.': continue if part[:1] in '0123456789': yield part.zfill(8) # pad for numeric comparison else: yield '*'+part yield '*final' # ensure that alpha/beta/candidate are before final To check a parse_version() value for stability, you can just loop over it looking for any part <"*foo" where "foo" is the desired minimum stability. That is, if you find a '*a' and you don't want alphas, then this version's no good. This lets you also distinguish between a beta that you might accept, from an in-development snapshot of a beta, that you wouldn't. >What's wrong with just running "setup.py install"? I'd rather continue >existing standards / conventions. Of course, it won't work when >setup.py requires setuptools; Actually, it will, if the setup script uses the current ez_setup bootstrapping method for setuptools. However, I'd like to get *rid* of that bootstrapping method, and replace it with this one. That's why I'd prefer that the bootstrap approach use a different entry point for launching, and why I want the module to expose an API, and why I don't really want the bootstrapper to actually "install" anything. For one thing, it means dealing with installation *options*. Your prototype doesn't pass through any command-line options to the script, so people would have to use a ~/.pydistutils.cfg file in order to control the installation options, for example. (Which then can break if the packager included a setup.cfg that was supposed to be overridden on the command line...) Probably this seems a lot more messy to me, because I've had my face directly planted in the mess for a number of years now, and I know that, for example, people bitched and moaned excessively about not being able to use --prefix with easy_install, the way they could with 'setup.py install'. And maybe my experiences aren't all relevant here; I'm just not very good at turning them off. My skepticism for the setup.py-based approach is at close to "new scheme for removing the GIL" level, because I've gone through a lot of pain to get easy_install from the stage where it looked a lot like your bootstrap prototype, to something that actually works, most of the time, for arbitrary distutils packages. :) And unfortunately, some of the hurdles will require a few release cycles to show up. And hey, if you're okay with that, cool. I just think that as soon as it gets out in the field, people will use it far outside anything we expect it to be used for, and if there's not a bright line for the *packager* to cross, I think we'll have people unhappy with the tool. If you have to do a special step to make something bootstrappable, then when the tool doesn't work, the user will ask the packager to take the special step. However, if the tool allows the user to *point* it at any package, and it randomly (from the user's POV) fails, then the tool (and Python) will be blamed for the failure. Because even though the bootstrap tool is "not a package manager", if it's close enough to look like "a simpler easy_install", people will try to use it as one, and blog about how bootstrap is broken and should support installation options, etc. (I suppose at this point easy_install is something of a counter-example to this worry; people can and do now give packagers patches to make their setup scripts more compatible with easy_install, in cases where the package does extensive distutils modification. OTOH, easy_install is a de facto standard, where bootstrap will be de jure. What does that mean in practice? Heck if I know. :) I guess people will hate on you instead of me, then, so maybe I should view that as an improvement. :) (It also makes it easier to understand your reluctance to be in any way associated with eggs, but there's a big difference between eggs and easy_install, and IMO your approach leans more towards the relative vices of easy_install than the relative virtues of eggs. But oh well.))

18 27

Not backporting PEP 3115 (metaclass __prepare__)
by Jack Diederich March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

We can't backport the __prepare__ syntax without requiring metaclass definition on the 'class' line. Because the __metaclass__ definition can be at the end of the class in 2.6 we can't find it until after we execute the class and that is too late to use a custom dictionary. I wish I had thought of that yesterday, -Jack

2 1