[Distutils] How we can get rid of eggs for 2.6 and beyond

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 10:41 PM 3/21/2008 +0000, Floris Bruynooghe wrote:
>On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 09:47:46AM -0400, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> > Questions, comments...  volunteers?   :)
>
>Sounds good, having a PEP626-style install database seems worthwile.
>Definately if it will enable setuptools to install just like distutils
>for a "install".
>
>Here some notes from my Debian admin/packager point of view (sorry if
>I miss perspectives of Windows users etc):
>
>* I'd like clearly defined module paths for: (a) system, (b) local
>   admin, (c) user.  PEP370 seems a step in the right direction.  When
>   using "setup.py install" it would be good if the correct prefix
>   would be chosen automatically for (b) and (c).  On Windows (a) and
>   (b) would be the same AIUI.

This seems to be out-of-scope.  The "install db" should be on a 
per-target directory basis, and not get into questions of relative 
ordering of target directories, or what directory is the default, or 
any of that.  If we go there, we could be talking until Python 4000 
is released.  :)  All I want is the specification for what is 
recorded within *one* installation directory.

IOW, let's please please please keep the PEP 262 replacement 
orthogonal and separate from any PEP 370 discussions.  Any 
relationship between the two is either an illusion or an 
insufficiently modular design.  :)


>* While the installdb can be shared between the sytem and the local
>   admin (/var/lib seems appropriate) the user can't normally write to
>   this.  So at separate user installdb might be needed.

Each sys.path directory should have its own installation data; see 
the "open issues" section of PEP 262.