[Distutils] Static metadata using setup.cfg

[Jeff Rush]

David Lyon wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:34:56 +0200, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> the long_description field is expressed as a multi-line field following
>> the config parser convention so no problem for it (see my example)

The long_description field is also a reStructuredText field and as such,
for the developer to preview it during its composure, it needs to be
left-aligned.  While a developer -could- cut/paste it into a separate
text file each time he wants to test preview it, that would be annoying.


>> Although there's another change we need to apply and decide : being
>> able to express a
>> list of values, for fields like "keywords" or "classifiers".
> 
> [Files]
> file1 = abc.txt
> file2 = def.txt
> 
> You can get all the keys in "[Files]" in a list in the configparser
> class.

Many of these ideas have already been expressed in a buildout.cfg file
that also uses ConfigParser.  Look there for ideas on how to do lists,
order things, substitute fields.  However if you put too much expressive
power into the metadata file, you make it hard to programatically reason
about what is means, which is the whole point of having a static
metadata file.  If you put too little, people will stick with setup.py.

-Jeff