[Distutils] Metadata extension discovery?

[Paul Moore]

On 12 September 2014 12:59, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
> I didn't catch what this kind of extension was for. Would you generate
> a wheel, add extensions to it with a tool, and then install it
> afterwards? Why would this be any easier than appending to the
> metadata file? Would anyone understand it? I would prefer that the
> .dist-info directory stay subdirectory-free.

Yes, it sounds like things are getting complex here and I'm not sure I
follow why. At the moment, the metadata for a distribution is
generated when setup.py is run, and is stored in the wheel and in the
installed dist-info directory when the distribution is installed.

The proposal here seems to be that something *else* could add metadata
to a distribution, from outside of that distribution.

I don't honestly see how that would work, and regardless I'd prefer it
if we got the metadata standard agreed and out of the door on the
basis that the project defines its own metadata all at once, before we
start adding features.

I can see that being able to have "someone else" manage extended
metadata might be useful. But many things *might* be useful, and I'd
rather we got PEP 426 out of the door. I want to see pip support
Metadata 2.0, projects start to be able to define metadata in that
format, and support thrashed out for things like postinstall scripts
that are needed right now, before we look for another set of problems
to solve... ;-)

Paul