[Distutils] Distutils roadmap of refactoring for 2.7

[David Lyon]

> Chris wrote:
>>> On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 7:11 PM, P.J. Eby <pje at telecommunity.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> Notice that other changes are coming up once
>>> the series of PEP we worked on are accepted (which should be before
>>> Pycon - at least for 345 and 386)
>>
>> ok - so are you going to sort out the confusing (i386 == mac)
>> and (x86 == pc) or (i586 == pc) or (i686 == pc) ?
>>
>> in PEP-345? or leave it as downright confusing?
>
> David,
>
> If you're going to hijack a thread to bang on about your pet peeve,
> please at least attribute the mail you're quote to the right person...

ok. I agree.

But it isn't a pet peave..

Introducing 'code' into the metadata will mean that PKG_INFO
files will become hated just as much by developers as what
.PTH have been.

Let me remind you what happened, .PTH files were supposed to
be data files (like metadata files).

Then a bright spark said, 'Let them contain code..'. And then
they did..

Then another bright spark said 'I shalt introduce code that
nobody else cannot understand or change'.

Then regular users found the whole thing such a nightmare
they came to loath the entire concept of a .PTH file.

So now, the exact same dreaded mechanism, is going to
be introduced into PKG_INFO files and I can't see why
it won't be also hijacked to make system administrators
lives a misery.

Giving a normal system administrator the job of knowing
that an 'i386' is actually a mac is going to drive them
bananas figuring out why the package isn't installing
properly on a pc.

Nine out of ten system administrators would guess that
'i386' is actually a pc. It should be but it isn't.

Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29:

'Python's philosophy rejects the Perl "there is more than one way to do
it" approach to language design in favor of "there should be one—and
preferably only one—obvious way to do it".[17]'

PEP-345 platform 'markers' throws this tradition away. Going instead for
inclusion of code in data files making them like .PTH files. Which will
when implemented, result in total confusion for sysadmins and audible
screaming.

Whatever...

David