[Distutils] User Viewpoint: Packaging History, Confusion and User Advice

[Nick Coghlan]

Thanks for posting this Erik.

That's not a bad summary, and
http://www.scotttorborg.com/python-packaging/index.html looks like an
excellent resource.

We're currently trying to bring some order to the chaos, as described
at http://python-notes.boredomandlaziness.org/en/latest/pep_ideas/core_packaging_api.html

Our current status is that most of the key projects are being gathered
under the "Python Packaging Authority" banner on Github and BitBucket.

https://github.com/pypa
  * the original PyPA projects (pip and virtualenv)

https://bitbucket.org/pypa/
  * existing projects recently migrated to PyPA (distlib, pypi, pylauncher)
  * new (very incomplete) packaging guide for users
  * new (very incomplete) "working on packaging tools" meta-guide for
contributors
  * the merged setuptools 0.7+ repo is also expected to live here once
Jason declares it ready for public consumption

My essay linked above should eventually migrate to the meta-guide, and
Scott's guide would be a useful link from the user guide (while it's
desirable to have a "default" tutorial, linking to others can also be
helpful for cases where the main guide doesn't make sense to users).

Once the user guide and meta guide are in a better state, we'll update
the stdlib distutils docs with a reference to them as a guide to a
more up to date packaging toolchain.

Cheers,
Nick.

--
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia