2009/6/30 Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek@gmail.com>:
On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Paul Moore<p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
- The terminology and focus feels setuptools-inspired (my apologies if that's not the case). Expect pushback from setuptools haters...
setuptools implemented *needed* features, like a way for developers to browse installed packages.
No problem with any of that. Please understand that on the whole, I'm in favour of the setuptools features. (While I dislike intensely some of the setuptools "ecosystem", such as easy_install. In fact, one of my goals in wanting this PEP accepted is to ensure that I can get the "good bits" of setuptools, without having to buy into the easy_install, dependency management, automated download infrastructure that currently goes with it).
We said during the summit at Pycon that we wanted this feature in Distutils, (Guido said so)
"We" in this context denotes the people at the summit. Please remember that people who weren't there still have an opinion - and it may well differ. I'm not saying that it *does* differ, just that the view of the summit should not be viewed as conclusive (unless the way Python is developed is very different from how I understand it).
So I worked in PEP 376 to introduce them.
And as with any PEP, that's a difficult and thankless task (I got a taste myself with PEP 302, and that was far easier), so just for the record, you have my thanks for doing this.
Now if the fact that we want to introduce the good ideas of setuptools into distutils, (problems Phillip resolved) will make people push it back *even* they are good idead, needed features, is something we need to fight against.
But there *are* issues with setuptools. Some users have mentioned them on a number of occasions. I've raised a few myself. By all means introduce the good ideas into the core - but make sure people agree that the ideas *are* good. And remember - all I said was that people may react against the setuptools-style terminology. Not that they dislike the *idea*, just that they might dislike the way it's presented. After all, one common complaint with setuptools (and one that I agree with) is that its documentation is obscure to the point of being hostile.
- It's quite dense for the casual reader not familiar with the terminology. I've never managed to read the whole thing through, personally.
I'll try to add a definitions section,
Thank you. I'll try to make the time to go through the PEP and comment more fully.
[1] I'd actually like it if the PEP defined an uninstall command - something like "python -m distutils.uninstall packagename". It can be as minimalist as you like, but I'd like to see it present.
it's already there:
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0376/#adding-an-uninstall-function
No, that defines an API, which as stated in the PEP, "allows a third-party application to use the uninstall function and make sure it's the only program that can remove a distribution it has previously installed". It does NOT define a standard uninstall command, to complement the standard install command. Paul.