[Distutils] Deprecate MANIFEST.in

[David Cournapeau]

Ben Finney wrote:
> David Cournapeau <david at ar.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp> writes:
>
>   
>> Ben Finney wrote:
>>     
>>> Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> writes:
>>>       
>>>> It doesn't make sense to have the list of the files in .svn or
>>>> .hg files. for your package.
>>>>         
>>> Again, why not? If I'm using a VCS for my source files, then the
>>> VCS is the Single Point of Truth for the inventory of source
>>> files.
>>>       
>> depending on your definition of sources, it is not. The VCS is there to
>> track a project, but sdist is a *distribution* mean. It is a packaged
>> version of your software - simple, but packaged nonetheless. There has
>> to be a (potential) difference between what goes in sdist and what is
>> recorded in the VCS. Python packaging is the only tool I am aware which
>> say both are equal.
>>     
>
> Okay, but that's a far cry from saying that it “doesn't make sense” to
> use the VCS inventory.
>   

Not that a far cry: python packaging tools are the only systems that I
know of which does this. For example, in autotools, the tarball
generated by make dist is never generated from the VCS.

I may have some weird tools in my VCS, or some huge test data, things
which do not make sense to distribute.

>   
>> The duplication argument could be made the other way: why
>> duplicating with sdist what the VCS offers you ?
>>     
>
> Yes, that's exactly my point.
>   

Maybe I was not clear, but my point cannot be further from your
suggestion :) sdist should not use the VCS, because a source tarball
generated from the VCS and from sdist are not the same thing at all. If
you want a source checkout (which is what sdist does if you use the
VCS), then use the VCS. Most good systems offer a service to
automatically generate the source from the VCS if you need to make it
available to people wo the VCS (trac, git and hg web frontends, etc...).

cheers,

David