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

[zooko]

On Apr 9, 2009, at 3:37 AM, Paul Moore wrote:
>>
>> I personally, as a consumer of other people's software, prefer to  
>> acquire their packages as sdist .tar.gz's or as .eggs on all  
>> platforms, including Windows, which I use regularly.  So your and  
>> my preferences as a consumer of packages differ on this.
...
>
> If I have to guess at your reasons, my assumption would be:
> - Consistent means of installing on all platforms

This is a big one.  Another is that try to use command-line  
interfaces instead of GUIs whenever possible.  I can, for example,  
script installation and run the same script on all my platforms, or  
schedule the script on all my platforms using buildbot.  Another is  
that I can uninstall with "rm", which I greatly prefer over the  
Windows Add/Remove programs interface.  Another is that if I  
easy_install a *different* package which requires that package, then  
the .egg can be automatically installed with no manual effort on my  
part.

Regards,

Zooko