[Distutils] the virtualenv-distribute mess

[kiorky]

Hi tarek,

Tarek Ziadé a écrit :

> The *whole* point of Distribute 0.6.x is to be backward compatible, meaning
> that if virtualenv switch to it, you will not even notice it.

Living in my 0.6.x snail sandbox is not a solution.
As it seems that Distribute 0.7 won't for a long time.

"setuptools based" packages will be able to be installed via the distribute 0.6
branch but not compatible with "distribute based" stuff. Note that new things
will eventually be packaged with the "new good way todo, aka with 0.7". There is
a great risk that they can't live together aside. NOGO

0.7 packages wont be compatibles with setuptools installation/namespaces, so it
will be impossible to install a lot of "setuptools based" packages aside with
new stuff in with this way too. NOGO too.

Maybe that the active community, zope, plone, django, etc. folks will take the
step to repackage without a word, but there are more chances that more that one
package on pypi that is not anymore maintened activly but, with 0.6, you can
just use them without problems (eg: things with C code), will be unusable with 0.7.

The transiton time will be long, there are no doubts.
People has other things to do to repackage / rewrite their code even with a
portage helper (ala 2to3)... It has a cost, it's useless, it's painfull, it's
risky. Even more if you have undertested packages.

But, in the meantime, you won't be able to do flawless deployments, you will
have to masterise all about the full python deployment knowledge to install your
stuff. That's unacceptable for me.

The only way i saw is a compatibility layer inside 0.7 but what i have
understood is that it's impossible by setuptools's implementation. Good or bad,
that's not the point, i just want stability.

I appreciate what you folks are doing with the distribute sphere, i have not
that much problems with it, but i do not support that it breaks very badly the
retro compatibilty for all things already packaged today, today tomorrow or in
one year.

> 
> Tarek

-- 
--
Cordialement,
KiOrKY
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