[Distutils] Removing the hack from setup.py - Setup.py as a Class, not a Procedure

[David Lyon]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:20:15 -0500, Jeff Rush <jeff at taupro.com> wrote:
>> Too right it's a hack - haha. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who's 
>> noticed.
> 
> You're misreading him - the hack is using an attribute of
> "package_data", ......

No I'm not...

I realise that was was being said related to a "tiny hack". But
there are many more in addition to that.

> If an egg wants to splatter data files outside the Python package area,
> other than scripts in /usr/local/bin/, I'd consider that very bad
> behavior.   

But eggs aren't the only types of installs that are required.

Applications need to install shortcuts - that's a type of link.

All these other things that need to be done should have an orderly
way to cater for them.

> Setuptools is not the hack (by the definition of 'hack') -- using
> setuptools in unusual ways is the hack.  

Oh please, wanting to do pre-setup and post-setup initialisation
shouldn't be so unusual.

> Most often the problems I see
> people have are they do not grok the problem that setuptools is solving
> and want it to solve some other problem.  When used for the purpose
> intended, setuptools is quite good.

My point isn't about whether setuptools is good or not. Everyone can
see that it's been rather good over the years. That's self evident.

But installing .dll files on windows is 100% neccessary in many
"normal-use" cases. It's just not out of the ordinary.

I'm making a stab in the dark to say that you're probably not on
windows and therefore perphaps you don't understand how frustrating
it is to work with these problems.

As windows developers we're in a situation of having to hack everything
and what I'm suggesting is a more clean way of doing things that is
more object oriented. 

More modern.. and more flexible..

Having setup as a class and not a procedure makes good design sense.

I'm sticking with that view - haha - until somebody tells me we
shouldn't use classes... everything else in python is Object Oriented
why shouldn't doing a setup be...

David