[Distutils] it's happened - wheels without sdists (flit)

[Donald Stufft]

> On Mar 30, 2015, at 11:36 AM, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mar 30, 2015, at 11:18 AM, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> setup.py as implemented with distutils/setuptools has a bit of a
>>> Goldilocks problem: it's just right for a medium-complexity project
>>> but when your project is very simple it's too hard, and when you get
>>> to the point where you are trying to extend distutils by writing a
>>> 10,000 line extension, yikes. So it's fantastic to be able to just
>>> avoid distutils entirely if it isn't the right size for your project.
>>> This example, flit, does not invoke any code from distutils,
>>> setuptools or bdist_wheel to do its thing.
>>> 
>>> A source release could just be an archive of the repository.
>>> 
>> 
>> An archive of the repository is not the same thing as a source release.
>> 
>> Honestly, most of my setup.py’s look basically the same as a flit ini
>> file, just inside of python instead of ini. For example, I’m not sure
>> how something like https://github.com/pypa/packaging/blob/master/setup.py
>> or https://github.com/pypa/warehouse/blob/master/setup.py or
>> https://github.com/pypa/twine/blob/master/setup.py or
>> https://github.com/pypa/readme/blob/master/setup.py would be improved by
>> moving it to a ini file instead of a python file.
>> 
>> The current toolchain absolutely has some problems, but I’m not convinced
>> that shuffling around the same data into different locations is the answer
>> to those problems.
> 
> The way to solve the problems is to allow anyone to try by providing
> good hooks that do not require extending distutils.

Sure. Which is why that’s what we’ve essentially been doing. Like I said I
have no problems with flit itself other than I think it needs to produce
sdists to be a reasonable solution. I don’t personally think it’s much
easier to work with than a simple setup.py (and in my experience, I often
want a simple.py plus a little extra) but I have no problem with its
existence as long as it learns how to produce sdists.

---
Donald Stufft
PGP: 7C6B 7C5D 5E2B 6356 A926 F04F 6E3C BCE9 3372 DCFA

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