[Distutils] YAGNI extras and tests_require

[Matt Good]

Oops, I forgot to copy the list on my first respose.

On Sun, 2006-10-22 at 14:45 -0400, Jim Fulton wrote:
> Matt Good wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-10-22 at 13:52 -0400, Jim Fulton wrote:
> >> I'd like to call "Ya aint gonna need it" on the extras feature of setuptools.
> >>
> >> As far as I can tell, extras are just a way to avoid fine-grained packages.
> >> Is this benefit worth the complexity?  I don't think so.  It violates
> >> "There's Only One Way To Do It" and increases the complexity of setuptools.
> >>
> >> Setuptools is wonderful but it is complex.  I think it would be helpful to
> >> make it simpler and I really don't see a need for extras.
> > 
> > Well, I've found them to be useful with entry points in Trac plugins.
> > For example the SpamFilter plugin provides several spam filtering
> > methods, not all of which will be needed by every user.  There's an IP
> > blacklist filter that requires DNSPython.  By declaring the entry point
> > for the blacklist module with an extra for DNSPython the module will
> > only load if that requirement is available.
> 
> Why not just distribute the IP blacklist filter as a separate package?
> 
> > 
> > I don't think it's uncommon for packages to have optional features that
> > require additional dependencies, and extras provide an easy way to
> > declare those dependencies.  Sure, sometimes these features could be
> > broken out into a separate package, but in the cases where I've used
> > extras making additional packages would be the more complex solution.
> 
> How more complex?  You would simply have had more packages?  Is that
> really more complex that extras?

Yes.  An extra is simply a line or two in setup.py.  A separate package
means another branch in SVN, more releases to make, upload to the
Cheeseshop, more files for users to download, and unneeded duplication
between the original and new package.  This seems like an awful lot of
additional work just to justify removing a feature from setuptools.

> Is it advantagous enough to violate TWOOWTDI?

How does it violate that?  There's *always* more than one way, but there
should be one clear "right way", and I think extras *is* that way.
There are clearly times when the right thing is to create a new separate
package, but I think that new package should have sufficient substance
and be decoupled from the original to justify distributing it
separately.  

> Is it really worth this extra complexity in setuptools?

Well, since Phillip is maintaining it I guess it's his decision.  I
think it's feature that's useful to developers, so I'm in favor of
keeping it.

-- 
Matt Good <matt at matt-good.net>