[Python-Dev] bdist_* to stdlib?

[Guido van Rossum]

On 2/13/06, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
> I'm actually opposed to bdist_egg, from a conceptual point of view.
> I think it is wrong if Python creates its own packaging format
> (just as it was wrong that Java created jar files - but they are
> without deployment procedures even today).

I think Jars are a lower-level thing than what we're talking about
here; they're no different than shared libraries, and for an
architecture that has its own bytecode and toolchain it only makes
sense to invent its own cross-platform shared library format
(especially given the "deploy anywhere" slogan).

> The burden should be
> on developer's side, for creating packages for the various systems,
> not on the users side, when each software comes with its own
> deployment infrastructure.

Well, just like Java, if you have pure Python code, why should a
developer have to duplicate the busy-work of creating distributions
for different platforms? (Especially since there are so many different
target platforms -- RPM, .deb, Windows, MSI, Mac, fink, and what have
you -- I'm no expert but ISTM there are too many!)

> OTOH, users are fond of eggs, for reasons that I haven't yet
> understood.

I'm neutral on them; to be honest I don't even understand the
difference between eggs and setuptools yet. :-) I imagine that users
don't particularly care about eggs, but do care about the ease of use
of the tools around them, i.e. ez_setup.

> From a release management point of view, I would still like to
> make another bdist_msi release before contributing it to Python.

Please go ahead.

--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)