[Distutils] YAGNI extras and tests_require

[Jim Fulton]

Matt Good wrote:
> 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,

Not necessarily.  You could manage multiple related packages as a single
SVN project. I do.

 > more releases to make, upload to the
> Cheeseshop,

True.

 > more files for users to download,

If the downloads are automated, does this make a difference?

 > and unneeded duplication
> between the original and new package. 

Why duplication? Likely, one of the packages would simply depend on the
other.

 > This seems like an awful lot of
> additional work just to justify removing a feature from setuptools.

I think the extra work is just making the extra releases, at least assuming
automated downloads.

>> 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 don't have to be multiple ways.  I also don't see extras
as being clearly superior, but we disagree.

Jim

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