[Distutils] [Catalog-sig] packaging terminology confusion

Tarek Ziadé ziade.tarek at gmail.com
Sun Jan 10 18:46:44 CET 2010


On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Brad Allen <bradallen137 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 5:53 AM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 12:40 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>>> Lennart Regebro <regebro at gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 10:01, Glyph Lefkowitz <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
>>>> > This is precisely what I meant to recommend: "Parcel" would be a
>>>> > good replacement word for the Python-specific meaning of
>>>> > "distribution".  I'm sorry if I was ambiguous and created confusion.
>>>>
>>>> I think it sounds too much like a python-specific word, like "egg".
>>>
>>> Agreed.
>>>
>>> At this point, people are just going to keep calling this entity a
>>> “package”, consistent with the majority of other languages and systems
>>> out there.
>>
>> Who is "people". AFAIK, most Python developers use the word "package"
>> for "python package"
>> and when they use the word "package" for "distribution", they will
>> stop doing it if they are told
>> that the proper word is "distribution" imho.
>
> Maybe that will work...if we go that route, can we shorten 'module
> distribution' to just 'distribution' in the distutils terminology
> docs? That would help support the general usage.
>
> We would also need to change the PyPI web pages which uses the word
> 'package' a lot. I see it in a lot of the README files published
> through PyPI as well.
>
>>> We'd have more chance, I think, of changing Python's concept “namespace
>>> that behaves like a module and can have sub-modules” — currently called
>>> “package” — to a different word and encouraging adoption of that new
>>> term.
>>
>> I think this is a way bigger change
>
> Yes, it's a big change but common usage is a strong tailwind which
> could make it easier. It could start with a PEP and a survey link sent
> to python-announce. Personally I strongly prefer the word 'package'
> the way it is used today in the PyPI user interface. Using the word
> 'distribution' all over that page just doesn't seem right...

I think we just need to agree on a list of definition and update these
two pages:

- http://docs.python.org/dev/distutils/introduction.html#general-python-terminology
- http://docs.python.org/dev/distutils/introduction.html#distutils-specific-terminology

Rafael add the latest version here :
http://wiki.python.org/moin/Distutils/Terminology  (with improvements
I am going to coming)

Maybe what you could do is propose your own terminology under this one
in the wiki page,
I'll do the same (mainly by copying Tres' definition)

And we can try to considate several proposals and work on a consensus

>
> For future reference, here is what the PyPI front page shows today:

(MvL said he would change "package" to "project" without problem, so
I don't think that we need to decide the best term using that page.

Regards,

Tarek
-- 
Tarek Ziadé | http://ziade.org


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