[Distutils] Beyond wheels 1.0: helping downstream, FHS and more

[Tim Golden]

On 16/04/2015 08:08, Paul Moore wrote:
> On 16 April 2015 at 00:48, Steve Dower <Steve.Dower at microsoft.com> wrote:
>> On the Start Menu suggestion, I think that's a horrible idea. Pip is not the
>> system package manager and it shouldn't be changing the system. Unversioned
>> script launchers are in the same category, but aren't quite as offensive.
>>
>> I know it's only a hypothetical, but I'd much rather it didn't get repeated
>> so often that it actually happens. There are better tools for making app
>> installers, as opposed to package installers.
> 
> Sorry - I agree it's an awful idea. Older wininst installers such as
> the pywin32 (and I think the PyQT one) one do this, I wanted to use it
> as an example of abuse of postinstall scripts that should *not* be
> perpetuated in any new scheme.

FWIW I've just had a to-and-fro by email with Mark Hammond. I gather
that he's now given Glyph access to the PyPI & hg setup for pywin32.

He's also happy to consider changes to the setup process to support
wheel/virtualenv/postinstall improvements. There's been a side
discussion on the pywin32 list about which versions of Python pywin32
should continue to support going forward, which obviously interacts with
the idea of making it wheel/virtualenv-friendly.

I'm not sure what Glyph's plan is at this point -- doubtless he can
speak for himself. I gather from Paul's comments earlier that he's not a
particular fan of pywin32. If the thing seems to have legs, I'm happy to
coordinate changes to the setup. (I am, technically, a pywin32 committer
although I've never made use of that fact).

The particular issue I'm not sure about is: how does Paul see pywin32's
postinstall steps working when they *are* needed, ie when someone wants
to install pywin32 as a wheel and wants the COM registration to happen?
Or is that a question of: run these steps manually once pip's completed?

TJG