[Distutils] Adding entry points into Distutils ?

[Paul Moore]

2009/5/7 Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com>:
> Eric Smith wrote:
>> Doug Hellmann wrote:
>>> On May 7, 2009, at 8:54 AM, Paul Moore wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2009/5/7 Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann at gmail.com>:
>>>>> I would argue the other way.  Why force authors of console scripts to
>>>>> deal
>>>>> with entry points instead of just installing the script as-is?
>>>> Please explain "as-is" with reference to ensuring that the script
>>>> works cross-platform. I think the benefit of entry points for scripts
>>>> is that it generates appropriate wrappers to allow use on all
>>>> platforms.
>>> I write a python script call hello.py like this:
>>>
>>>     #!/usr/bin/env python
>>>
>>>     def main():
>>>         print 'hello!'
>>>
>>>     if __name__ == '__main__':
>>>         main()
>>>
>>> Why make me define an entry point for that?  I can just put it in
>>> /usr/bin or somewhere in the path on Windows and call it as "hello.py".
>>>
>>> Does setuptools give me something extra for Windows?  I'm not a regular
>>> Windows user, so it's likely that there are features I don't know about.
>>
>> Yes. It creates a .exe wrapper [1]. By using entry points, I don't need
>> to care what the target system is. Also, /usr/bin/env might invoke the
>> wrong python.
>
> Exactly:  using entry points for console scripts guarantees that the
> python into which the corresponding distribution is installed is the one
> used to run the script, which is *highly* desirable.  Otherwise, you end
> up with the "just install everything in the system Python's
> site-packages" mess.

... and somewhere around here we end up with what I described as an
over-engineered solution.

By trying to satisfy everyone's requirements, you ultimately satisfy no-one's.

Sigh. I keep meaning to avoid getting sucked back into this tar-pit,
and I keep failing :-(

Just put me down as a hearty +1 for Doug's "just deploy a script
called whatever.py" approach for standalone stuff, and using python -m
for scripts distributed as part of larger distributions.

Paul.