[IPython-dev] [IPython-user] IPython 0.7.0 is out.

[Robert Kern]

Fernando Perez wrote:

> The win32 installer puts the manual with a link in the start menu, and the 
> *nix ones do put the docs and manpages in the proper places (/usr/share/doc). 

That's not necessarily the proper place.

>   Did you remove them altogether?  What happens if someone installs the egg 
> and they want to read the manual?  Do they need to go online?

This is one issue with using eggs as a packaging system. There's no place in an
egg (with out-of-box setuptools[1]) to put docs and examples. Just think of eggs
as Java jars, and not .rpms or .debs.

That said, I never liked using install_data to install these kinds of things.
The package author (you, in this case, but others are worse) inevitably makes
too many assumptions about where I want things. And each package author makes
different assumptions, so I can't even pick a location and set it in
.pydistutils.cfg. I say, nuts to that.

Eggs aren't a replacement for getting the source tarball or manual. They aren't
intended to be.

[1] One could, relatively easily, write a setup.py that places the docs in a
directory inside the EGG-INFO directory inside the egg, just as the scripts are
located inside there, too. It might even be worthwhile pushing for
EGG-INFO/docs/ as the canonical place to put package documentation. If you like,
we can try this with ipython and see if it catches on with other folks.

-- 
Robert Kern
robert.kern at gmail.com

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
 Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
  -- Richard Harter