[Distutils] Making pip and PyPI work with conda packages

[David Cournapeau]

On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 2:25 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 18 May 2015 at 14:32, David Cournapeau <cournape at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:05 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Indirection via pip injects the usage of setuptools even for plain
> >> distutils projects, and generates
> https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0376/
> >> compliant metadata by default.
> >
> >
> > Note that some packages will push hard against injecting setuptools, at
> > least until it does not offer a way to prevent from installing as an egg
> > directory. Most of the core scientific packages avoid setuptools because
> of
> > this.
>
> pip changes the default behaviour of setuptools to be more in line
> with the behaviour of plain distutils (e.g. forcing
> "--single-version-externally-managed").
>
>
Yes, but that cannot be the only way to install the package.

This is why I would like to see a way forward for
https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/issue/371/setuptools-and-state-of-pep-376,
to start pushing packages using setuptools in their setup.py in the
scientific stack. Without this, it will be hard to move forward politically
speaking. Lots of key contributors have a strong aversion to setuptools way
of doing things (partly historical reasons, but it is hard to change minds).

If every system (pip, "setup.py install", conda, enstaller) were to at
least write the {dist/egg}-info directories correctly, it would be already
a significant step toward interoperation.

David


This means that "pip install X" consistently gives setuptools levels
> of capabilities in terms of dependency management, without defaulting
> to installing things as egg archives or directories (modulo the rough
> edges around setup-requires).
>
> As Donald notes, "pip install" also abstracts away any future
> invocation of a metadata based pluggable build system, while
> "./setup.py install" assumes the distutils-based status quo will
> remain in place forever.
>
> Cheers,
> Nick.
>
> --
> Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
>
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