[Distutils] setuptools in a cross-compilation packaging environment

[Paul Moore]

On 10/11/05, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> > Only in the sense that it would require reinventing them in a different
> > form.  :)
>
> Not really - but we seem to have different views on whether
> installers are good thing or not, so there's little point in
> argueing over this.

I have to say that although I like the egg concept in general, I too
am uncomfortable with the "just drop the file in" approach to package
management. I'm completely fine with it for plugins, but as you say,
I'd expect applications that support plugins to set things up to make
drop-in plugins work - standardising that mechanism's fine.

But for general packages (PIL, pywin32, cx_Oracle, whatever), I
actively want a managed installation. I have made noises about
building management tools for eggs, but I think I've been hitting the
"absolutely requiring install/uninstall steps, which is anathema"
philosophy, which makes such tools awkward to define.

So I'd like to see this discussion continue, because I suspect MAL has
some important points - which may clash with PJE's goals somewhat, but
at least if we get the clashes out in the open, it may help people
like me, who can't quite understand why we're having difficulty
understanding the concepts, to see where the mental blocks lie :-)

Paul.