[Distutils] What's missing from easy_install

[David Cournapeau]

Hi Neal,

Neal Becker wrote:
> I'm using Fedora, which is rpm/yum based.  A new python module is announced, 
> I'd like to easy_install it.  The official fedora package may be delayed by 
> weeks.  So I easy_install.  But when the fedora update comes, they may 
> conflict.  For example, scons from fedora will place things in 
> /usr/lib/scons, not the same as easy_install.

In that case, there is an easy way to fix this: do not install anything
in /usr. You should *never* install anything in /usr, because it is
considered owned by the system packager. Either you install it in
/usr/local (if you want to keep things installed system-wide), or
somewhere where you can write as a unprivileged user.

> Nothing will clean it.  So, there is a real need for 
> easy_uninstall. 
>   

I did not want to imply that it was not a useful feature - I think it is
a very useful feature (I dream of the day when I won't have to say
"please remove the installed directory before installing an updated
numpy checkout" :) ). It is just much harder to do reliably than what
some people think, in part because there are now so many ways to install
things in python (distutils, setuptools, pip, yolk, etc...), with
different side-effects on installation.

cheers,

David