[Distutils] python version information in .egg-info directory name

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 11:51 AM 7/21/2006 -0700, Andrew Straw wrote:
>I don't see what problem you're trying to solve by having the python
>version number in the .egg-info/ directory name. :) Is there any
>Python-version-specific info the in the .egg-info directory?

Yes.

>  How 'bout
>in the case when it is installed with
>--single-version-externally-managed command, which what we're talking
>about with Debian, anyway?

Yes.


>Anyhow, this is also creating an issue for me with stdeb because I'm
>trying to get the generated source packages as close as possible to
>Debian policy.

Unfortunately, Debian's policy -- especially the idea of mixing paths for 
multiple Python versions -- doesn't mesh well with reality.  Python 
projects don't always install the same files for a given Python version, or 
the same content in the same files.  Setuptools is only a relatively minor 
example of this; other Python projects do far more customization of the 
install process (by Python version and dependencies) than setuptools does 
of its own.  Bluntly, mixing Python versions on the same path for 
*installed* packages (whether installed by the distutils or setuptools) 
borders on insanity.

(More precisely, it sounds like exactly the sort of thing to do if one 
wanted to create all sorts of problems for which one could then claim 
credit for fixing as part of a "quality assurance" effort, constantly 
patching upstream packages to work around the problems, thereby cementing 
in one's own mind the importance of doing QA work to fix those upstream 
authors' shoddy work that fails to live up to your distribution's "quality" 
standards.  And yet somehow, nobody will ever seem to notice that it's the 
policy *itself* that's causing the problems,  because of *course* those 
upstream developers know *nothing* about quality assurance...  sigh.  But 
that's a rant for another day.)

Anyway, in this case at least, the reason you're running into a problem is 
because there's an inherent problem here, not because setuptools is doing 
something it shouldn't be.