[Distutils] installing .py plugins to an alternate directory

[P.J. Eby]

At 12:34 AM 12/5/2009 +0100, Andrew Dalke wrote:
>I had some concerns about them. For one, all of the plugins define 
>out-word facing web services on our server. If the plugins can be 
>located in arbitrary locations inside of site-packages, how does the 
>administrator know which plugins will be activated? How does the 
>admin enable/disable a plugin for testing or security reasons, 
>except by changing the entire package installation?

Then install the plugins as eggs to the plugin directory, rather than 
installing them in site-packages.


>If the admin wants to change the URL for a given service from 
>"/spam" to "/spam_and_eggs", which is currently done as 
>configuration data in the installed plugin, file, that is, by changing
>
># default service name is base on the function name. This becomes "/spam"
>@simple_service("GET", "http://protocol.id/")
>def spam():
>   return "Spam!"
>
>  -to-
>
>@simple_service("GET", "http://protocol.id/", "spam_and_eggs")
>def spam():
>   return "Spam!"
>
>
>It does not seem like changing the installed package will be so simple.

Indeed.  It would be much better to make your service decorator read 
overrides from a configuration file, so that the decorator values are 
merely defaults.  Editing source code is a lousy way to do 
configuration, when there's stuff in the file besides configuration.