[Distutils] Distutils changes - end user requirements (Was: Deprecate MANIFEST.in)

[Thomas Heller]

Tres Seaver schrieb:
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> Paul Moore wrote:
>> 2009/4/9 Lennart Regebro <regebro at gmail.com>:
>>> 2009/4/9 Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com>:
>>>> Don't they? I have to admit that I'm baffled by how the features in
>>>> setuptools/eggs/easy_install all hang together. What about the magic
>>>> that creates executables from scripts? Entry points? Stuff like that.
>>>> Don't you need to use eggs to make them work?
>>> No....? Entry points work even if you have the source code in a tgz
>>> format and run setup.py install. The distribution format is not
>>> magical for that afaik.
>>>
>>>> So by what you're saying, eggs are a strict subset of
>>>> bdist_wininst, and so people should be distributing bdist_wininst
>>>> installers. But they aren't, so what gives?
>>> Nobody knows about it?
>> 
>> Possibly :-(
>> 
>>> But in any case, even if it would be a good idea to have every single
>>> Python package on the system listed in the Add/Remove programs list
>>> (Which I don't think it is, but that's a matter of taste, no logical
>>> arguments behind that), that would in practice mean that each and
>>> every package on PyPI must have a wininstaller, even if it is a
>>> pure-python package. That doesn't seem realistic to me.
>> 
>> Personally, I'd be happy if every package that currently distributes
>> any form of Windows binaries, distributed a Windows installer. That's
>> about the same level of coverage as existed before setuptools
>> appeared, so I don't think that's impossible to achieve. I agree that
>> expecting *everything* to have a Windows installer is unreasonable.
> 
> Is there a technical reason why Windows users cannot build the
> installers themselves from "pure Python" sdists?

No. There's even a script that automates the process completely.  It allows
to build bdist_wininst installers by drag and drop.

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/117248/

"""
Recipe 117248: installing source distributions on windows

Distutil's bdist_wininst installers offer uninstallation support
for Python extensions, many developers however only distribute sources
in zip or tar.gz format. The typical steps to install such a distribution
are:
- download the file
- unpack with winzip into a temporary directory
- open a command prompt and type 'python setup.py install'
- remove the temporary directory

This script unpacks a source distribution into a temporary directory,
builds a windows installer on the fly, executes it, and cleans everything up afterward.
"""


Not that it has gained much interest, afaik.

-- 
Thanks,
Thomas