[Distutils] "Python Package Management Sucks"

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 10:33 AM 10/2/2008 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>OTOH if it's not really a metadata store vs a resource store but instead
>a package store vs a distribution store we need to decide if we really
>want to have both.  Someone pointed out earlier that
>
>Side note: the fact that someone wrote EggTranslations speaks of a need
>for people to be able to access the per-package data store across
>packages.  Let's fix that and work with EggTranslations to rewrite its
>backend to use a proper storage.  (Looking at the EggTranslations
>documentation, it might even be a proper place for getting ideas and
>help with designing the API for a public data store.)

If we want to have something that can be adopted with any speed, 
we're going to have to rule out of scope anything that forces people 
to change their *runtime* code (vs. packaging code).  Even setuptools 
doesn't require that people use the API; it detects when a program is 
probably reading stuff directly and installs packages unzipped in that case.

So, let's focus the discussion towards ways to make it possible for 
people to declare what they're *already* doing; otherwise, we are 
just adding to the switching cost for the new system, which needs to 
be kept as low as possible.  The new system has to be more attractive 
to developers in the general case, in order to overcome the cost of 
switching, so adding *new* switching costs is to be avoided at all... 
costs.  :)