[Distutils] Static metadata using setup.cfg

[David Lyon]

On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:41:40 +0200, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> I'd prefer setup.cfg to be totally static. If there are complicated
>> if/then/else's needed, they should be in setup.py.

+1

> The template engine will be restricted to "if", and the expression
> will be able to ^may only 3 values:
> 
> - the python version
> - sys.platform
> - os.name

That's very, very hard....

It makes it harder for the developer because they must learn yet 
another templating system. Add half a days work to every developer.

>> As soon as this file becomes dynamic, we're back in the situation where
>> you
>> can't tell what a package requires without installing it, which is
>> something
>> I'd really like to not have to do.

+1

> setup.cfg stays static. We're talking about the ability to add a
> setup.cfg.in file,
> that generates the setup.cfg file ***without having to run any third
> party code***.
> 
> So again, this will not require any installation to run since
transforming
> a "setup.cfg.in" into a "setup.cfg" will just require a vanilla Python

It's still just overly complicated..

> to synthetize =
> 
> if exists(setup.cfg.in):
>   setup.cfg = distutils.some_func(setup.cfg.in)
> else:
>   nothing
> 
> That's the whole point ! ;)

Point is to introduce distutils? haha - why not just use setuptools?

> It means that people will be able to read the .cfg file, and if needed
> to rebuild for their platform
> without any installation required.
> 
> Eventually, PyPI can provide both (.cfg and .cfg.in) as metadata that a
> tool can
> grab to see what's required for installation, *without installing the
> package*

I can see your intentions here are good. But what you are suggesting is
just overly complicated for what is required. There's no need for a
templating engine, in this part of distutils.

Yes, introducing a template engine might be good for multi-platform
output.

But the setup.py and setup.cfg and [setup] sections must be readily
understood by the complete novice. That's the point that you don't
seem to understand yet. Stop making it non-obvious.

No installation system I have ever heard of makes it mandatory
to understand a template system to be able to write your "hello
world - I'm installed".... script..

Especially when the alternative is just "if os.name == "win32:"

..

I see nothing wrong with such a simple piece of python code...

Regards

David