(the list address on the original email I replied to was broken) On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Michele Lacchia <michelelacchia@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I read this: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/python/dev/992979

but at the end nobody posted to it anymore. I would like to know what will now happen, since as far as I understood, the development of packaging has stopped and Bento (David Cournapeau library) has appeared.

No, the distutils2 project continues and is still being actively developed. (distutils2 *is* packaging - the name on PyPI is just different from the name that will be used when it is added to the standard library). Bento is a project that aims to tackle part of distutils that distutils2 hasn't really looked at yet: creating a more flexible build system (or, more accurately, making it easier to hook into *existing* build systems rather than defining yet another one). (In fact, the lack of attention to the build system flaws is one of the big reasons distutils2/packaging was deemed unready for stdlib inclusion in 3.3)

So what will happen now? Packaging will continue the development? Or will be Bento replace it? Personally I don't care which tool will become standard, but I do feel the need for a standard to be created.

The point of having documented standards in PEP form is that there can (and will) be multiple projects that produce and consume those standard formats.

- PEP 345 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0345/) - PEP 376 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0376/) - PEP 386 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0386/)

Those PEPs are *already* standards and are actively supported by external projects today. One key missing piece is standard library support, which the packaging module is intended to provide. However, it was deemed that the project was not quite mature enough for 3.3, thus it will continue to be developed (with a faster iteration cycle) as distutils2, with a view to including a more mature version of the API for 3.4. This will likely take the form of additional PEPs that more clearly define what is to be added and *why* it is being added, with one focus being making it easier to build additional tools that produce and consume metadata in the standard formats, rather then being a comparatively unwieldy monolithic system like the original distutils. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia