[Distutils] Distutils functionality questions/clarifications...

[David Lyon]

On Tue, 2 Jun 2009 14:50:35 +0200, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>  1) Debian+ubuntu .deb support? working? not-working? Status?
> 
> The stdeb project provides a layer on the top of distutils for example
> to achieve this.

Oh ok - well the documentation should really lead people there.. imho

>>  2) Mac Support? Working? same - how well? documentation is vague
> 
> What kind of mac support you are reffering to ? If you build
> something, it will work fine under mac

Well...

update the documentation.. the table near the top needs to
reflect that.

snip of ... http://docs.python.org/distutils/builtdist.html
-----
The available formats for built distributions are:
Format 	Description 	Notes
gztar 	gzipped tar file (.tar.gz) 	(1),(3)
ztar 	compressed tar file (.tar.Z) 	(3)
tar 	tar file (.tar) 	(3)
zip 	zip file (.zip) 	(4)
rpm 	RPM 	(5)
pkgtool 	Solaris pkgtool 	 
sdux 	HP-UX swinstall 	 
rpm 	RPM 	(5)
wininst 	self-extracting ZIP file for Windows 	(2),(4)
-----

>>  3) windows installers for packages - can we kill them? or
>>    how do we move to something better...
> 
> What do you mean by "killing them" ?

Remove from circulation.

>> I'm wondering what people think about having a gui interface
>> to drive all this technical wizardry....
> 
> What would your GUI do precisely ?

Allow a novice to take a python "application" or "module" and
run it through all those tools and end up with the desired
built targets....

The kinds of things that need to be managed are:

 - versioning
 - provision for documentation
 - compiling p2exe,py2app
 - windows installers
 
I'm not having too many new ideas because it appears these things
are already implemented...

But in a simple example, a user has a (say) windows pc, wants to build
for mac and linux... has no idea... clicks the appropriate
check boxes... and it all "gets done"...

Perphaps even uploading the lot to their website or pypi...
 
> distutils can probably provide the basis for a third-party application
> that wants to provide
> some GUI to drive some process.

hmmm... it's an interesting thought...

> On the packaging side ? tons of things really

Yes, well I am very close to releasing a Package Manager GUI so
I'm kindof concentrating on that first before I go take on any
new commitments...

David