[Distutils] What does it mean for Python to "bundle pip"?

[Nick Coghlan]

On 22 Aug 2013 06:57, "Paul Moore" <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21 August 2013 21:35, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm reasonably confident the wheel format *doesn't* meet the scientific
community's needs in the general case, and can't be made to do so without a
lot of additional complexity. That's why I explicitly support the
hashdist/conda approach which abandons some of the goals of pip and wheel
(notably, easier handling of security updates and easier conversion to
Linux distro packages) in order to better handle complex binary
dependencies.
>
>
> While "the general case" may include some specialised situations, in my
view, if the wheel format isn't a suitable replacement for bdist_wininst
(and by implication, cannot be used by the numpy, scipy and similar
projects to deliver Windows binary distributions) - maybe not for
specialised use, but certainly for casual users like myself - then it will
be essentially a failure.

Sure, it can replace bdist_wininst. What it *can't* do is tag an
arbitrarily complex dependency tree the way hashdist can. So you're either
going to need fat wheels which figure out the right binary extensions to
use in a post-install hook, or else you're going to have to bless a default
configuration that is published as a wheel.

Since wheel 1.0 has no support for post-install hooks, that option is not
yet available, and I don't expect the idea of blessing a default binary
version to be popular either.

>
> The only reason I am interested in wheels *at all* is as a format that
allows me to "pip install" all those projects that currently provide
bdist_wininst installers. In the first instance, via "wheel convert", but
ultimately by the projects themselves switching from wininst format to
wheel (or via some form of build farm mechanism, it doesn't matter to me,
as long as the wheels are on PyPI).
>
> Note that "wheel convert" is proof that this is the case right now, so
this is not setting the bar unreasonably high. Nor am I saying that there's
even a problem here at the moment. But if distutils-sig is sending a
message that they don't think wheels are a suitable distribution format for
(say) numpy or scipy, then I will be very disappointed.

Wheel is a suitable replacement for bdist_wininst (although anything that
needs install hooks will have to wait for wheel 1.1, which will support
metadata 2.0). It's just not a replacement for what hashdist and conda let
you do when you care more about reproducibility than you do about security
updates.

Cheers,
Nick.

>
> Paul
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