[Distutils] Importable wheels using distlib/distil

[Paul Moore]

On 28 March 2013 16:02, Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Return this directory. Note that the caller is responsible for
>         deleting this directory and its contents, which might not be
>         possible - e.g. in Windows, if a shared library has been
>         imported and is linked to the running Python process, there will be
>         an open handle to the shared library which will prevent its deletion.
>         """

That's the big issue I have with *any* approach like this. It's
entirely possible that the directory cannot be deleted, and as a
result the user ends up with the problem of managing clutter caused by
this mechanism. Even if the directory is in %TEMP% the user still has
the issue of clearing up. Consider a buildslave that continually runs
tests - temp directory clutter is a definite issue in a situation like
that.

And of course, if an application user chooses to use this mechanism, I
don't have an option to opt out unless we start getting into complex
"if the package is installed use it, otherwise mount our internal
wheel" logic.

I'd like to hold off on this feature until there are actual requests
for the functionality. It's not easy to argue against the idea purely
on a "it might go wrong" basis without actual use cases to look at and
see if/how they would handle the problem situations.

Paul.