[Distutils] Using Wheel with zipimport

[Vinay Sajip]

> It may be useful to understand that wheel has *political features* or
> if you prefer *setting the defaults based on what we have learned from
> eggs*. I don't recommend that they be zip-imported generally
> but if you are a consenting adult who understands the caveats you
> may do so.

What *exactly* have we learned from eggs? We've learned that sys.path
manipulation under the hood is bad, because sys.path is important to system
behaviour and because the ramifications of changing it under the hood are unpredictable.

But we don't let that lead to a mindset that prohibits *any* sys.path manipulation - it's vital
in many situations to be able to manipulate sys.path in a controlled way.

What *else* have we learned from eggs? If we leave to one side the sys.path manipulation
issues, what else has been problematic about the egg format? Details seem hard to find,
though there's lots of talk in general about "pain" and "weirdness". I'm asking because I
really want to understand at a more detailed level what those problems are, because I
would be interested in trying to solve them, or minimise their impact. That might sound
naïve to some - but there it is.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip