[Distutils] Using Wheel with zipimport

[Matthew Iversen]

On 30/01/14 00:59, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> On 29 January 2014 23:48, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
>> So what did you mean when you said "We discussed it extensively before
>> PEP 427 was approved" if you're now saying that it wasn't discussed.
> "Explicitly" would be a better word:
> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2012-September/018960.html
>
> Like I said, that particular aspect wasn't controversial, so while it
> was noted a few times (a few other examples of which you found), it
> was the overall discussions that were extensive. Both Daniel and I
> knew the zipimport compatibility for packages that were themselves zip
> compatible was a deliberate feature, so it was a surprise to me when
> Armin Ronacher said in his recent article that it wasn't supported
> (and hence the clarification).
>
> Cheers,
> Nick.
>
In My Humble Opinion, that just isn't good enough. I am sure that
everyone on this list has a passionate interest in making sure that the
decisions for "python packaging" are as right as possible, and we know
there are processes to follow that help us achieve that. One of those is
that one should always be explicit about what features and functionality
anything supports, which means that all features and functionality can
be discussed, agreed upon, improved, etc, before it becomes something
that everyone wilfully agrees to support. Wheels are either *documented*
to be a binary format that *officially supports* zipimport-ability
(fully, conditionally, or whatever), or the default answer is, like any
other functionality not explicitly mentioned, no they are not. That's
how you get a standard where issues can be discussed without tension.
Two people agreeing to themselves that this is an uncontroversial
implicit feature is not part of the documentation process, and whether
or not they are the creators and acceptors of such standards, it leaves
others out of the process until this late stage of the game. The
unfortunate disagreements are exactly what can happen when things aren't
made explicit from the start and are what are preventable when they are.
"Docs or it doesn't exist" is popular developer mantra for a reason.

Even as mostly an kibitzer on this group I hope it can learn from and
avoid this sort of discussion into the future.

-- 
Matt Iversen
PGP: 0xc046e8a874522973 // 2F04 3DCC D6E6 D5AC D262  2E0B C046 E8A8 7452 2973


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