[Distutils] Python people want CPAN and how the latter came about

[David Cournapeau]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 5:12 AM, David Cournapeau <cournape at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> When you say "which could be solved relatively easily" I suggest that
>>> you take the time to add concise and precise proposals in
>>> bugs.python.org so I can work on them.
>>
>> Technically, it is easy. Only have two mechanisms for data files: one
>> for installed data files, and one for extra source files (as done in
>> automake for example):
>>  -  Extra files only need to be listed (and included in sdist)
>>  -  Install data files need a target directory. One of the problem
>> with distutils here is that you can only hardcode paths - in my own
>> packaging solution, I use $path variables so that any path defined
>> internally can be reused ($bindir, etc...); something similar could be
>> defined in distutils.
>
> distutils uses install schemes with variables too ($base, etc), that
> are expanded at installation time. and differs depending on the
> options you pass to the install command.
> (look at the command/install module)

To be clear: I am talking about the POV of the setup.py writer here.
AFAIK, those $path variables are not available in this case: when
using data_files, you only have the choice between using absolute
files or relative to package path. That's why you had to advise one
poster to move his files into a package in one recent email, and that
the only solution to another poster was to create a new command (to
access those $path vars).

The notion of data vs package data does not make much sense IMHO. All
current methods should be deprecated, to the profit of the only
difference that matters: installed vs non-installed data files.

cheers,

David