[Distutils] Confusion of a hobby programmer

Don Question donquestion at rocketmail.com
Mon Feb 18 20:56:33 CET 2013


Hi folks,

lately i was wondering (again) if i should put my small python projects on
pypi, and reevaluated (again) the required package-format. And quite frankly
im confused (again) as so many times before. I count at least 5 major and 3

minor/alternative packaging-systems:

* distutils
* distutils2 (=packaging?!)
* setuptools
* easy_install
* distribute

# bento
# pip 
# zc.buildout

A quick search-engine consultation brought results dated from 2009 to
*early* 2012 in the top-ten, where the 2009ish results were not easily
recognized as outdated and ranked mostly before the newer ones.
(e.g. #4:The Hitchhiker's Guide to Packaging:  2009, Tarek Ziadé. )


The next stop lead to the *official* (as in supposed guideline) python docs.
But then it got me again. *setup.py* ?! I thought Ziade said 2011 something
like: "No more setup.py!" (And if i recall correctly - wanted to be applauded
for this achievment! ;-) )

So i postponed (again) my contributions - not really a loss for the world -
but somewhat sad nevertheless. (And with growing respect i give my kudos
to those, which allow me to use pip for their packages.)

And i'm not bitching (o.k. maybe a little bit;-) ) about the still unresolved,

non-trivial task of creating the perfect packaging-system.
What i'm really so sad about is the missing, or rather misleading and confusing
pointer(s) for new pastry-chefs willing to contribute to the cheese-cake-shop
as what to do.

Maybe i'm just too dumb, to get it straight in one go, but on the other hand
even Forest Gump build abundance and a rich empire  out of his good-will,
because he had the benevolent guidance of those smarter then him.

Why am i denied this oppurtunity? As it turned out it seems i'm not the only
one. A friend of mine wanted to contribute some rather particular applications
and libraries, which he wrote for his experiments for his Ph.D.-Thesis,
but gave up after he couldn't figure it out how to do it right in one afternoon.
He felt discouraged by the circumstance, that he need more time to figure 
out how to make a package, then to actually write his tools. Or maybe he didn't
want to admit he was embarrassed to need a higher IQ for simple packaging
then for his doctoral thesis! ;-)

So i figured out i'm not the only one, who prefers to relay on .tgz, .deb, or
at least buildout redistribution as a personal packaging system, if not checking
out directly from a cvs.
So please, please fix at least the docs. I'm dreaming of a google-hit ranked:

#1 python packaging primer for budding pastry chefs in five minutes.
Your entry into the Cheese-shop aka pypi (Python Package Index) ...
(p.s. don't look elsewhere except if searching for a python 2.7 guide!)
Dated February 2012 - python 3.3

#2: python packaging primer for budding pastry chefs in five minutes.
Your entry into the Cheese-shop aka pypi (Python Package Index) ...

(p.s. don't look elsewhere!)

Dated February 2012 - python 2.7

With heartfelt regards and in hope not to be a to big douche,
Donny
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