[Distutils] Alternate static metadata PEP submission...

[David Lyon]

On Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:29:02 +0100, Chris Withers <chris at simplistix.co.uk>
wrote:
> David Lyon wrote:
>> So I will build an option in to check on the net for an updated
>> version before starting.
> 
> That won't fly.

but it will most definitely work...

and it will be backwards compatable with older python installations.

> A significant number of people will be installing in situations where 
> setup.py will have no access to the internet.

Of course. So an update check won't make it through.

> Why is it that you basically want to put an entire module's worth of 
> code inside every single package's setup.py?

Because it is easy. 

Let me put it another way - how does a 'normal-user' update distutils
in the stdlib?

> Take something like errorhandler:
> 
> http://pypi.python.org/pypi/errorhandler
> 
> The actual code of the package is only about 30 lines long.
> 
> Having to include a 500 line setup.py just so I can include metadata in 
> the packages seem pretty insane ;-)

Well, 500 lines is just this week. Maybe by next week it will be even more.

If the file is 100kb long, I don't think a user would care. 

I don't think users in the real world will look at the file.. and think
"wow - that's 
100k.. we can't possibly run that program on our new quad core 3ghz machine
with 
4GB ram and 1TB disk space.

To me, I think it will be the other way around..  I think they'll think
"here's a 
crunchy setup.py.. lets run that". Same as always. Business as usual.


David