[Distutils] [Python-Dev] Capsule Summary of Some Packaging/Deployment Technology Concerns

[Jeff Rush]

Dave Peterson wrote:
> 
> I agree.   Let's get that setuptools wiki started and start documenting 
> some of these ideas as a roadmap so that anyone who wants to help out 
> has an idea of what to work on, or factor into what they're currently 
> working on.

> Anyway, since Enthought is already scratching, I'm fine with the idea of 
> building a standard way to do it that is driven by human-readable 
> data.   We just need to setup the process to allow that to happen.   So 
> far I haven't seen any responses from you in regards to the setup of an 
> issue/patch tracker, wiki, process to open up the number of commiters, 
> etc. that gives me any confidence I'm not heading off down the wrong 
> path somehow.  Perhaps I'm too cautious?

Dave, I'm in the process of getting a tracker for setuptools, and I'll work on 
the wiki shortly, although we have the PackagingBOF wiki for idea collection 
at the moment. Give me a couple of days, including travel from PyCon.  I'm 
fired up to make this happen.


>> Actually, I wonder if instead of trying to enhance setuptools for 
>> post-install, if maybe we should be looking at buildout recipes and 
>> maybe having a way for setuptools dependencies to point to buildout 
>> specs.  IIRC, buildout specs can be remotely retrieved from a single 
>> URL, too.
> 
> I'll need to read up more on buildout to understand this, but my 
> understanding was that buildout was not something a user ran to install 
> an app, but rather something the developer ran to build and publish an 
> app.  The end result of a 'production' buildout is to generate a large 
> tarball or rpm that included everything, right?   If so, this goes 
> directly against what Enthought was aiming for, which was to allow 
> delivery of bug-fixes and minor updates in a large app by downloading 
> only smaller units instead of a huge monolithic re-install of everything.

Your view of a fine-grained application bundle with the ability to dynamically 
download updated eggs without re-pulling the entire thing is an interesting 
contrast to Paul's view of a more monolithic application for easier 
add/remove/uninstall completeness.  Supporting both usage models is going to 
be a challenge but I think is feasible with some thought.

-Jeff