[Python-Dev] [Distutils] how to easily consume just the parts of eggs that are good for you

[Joachim König]

Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> It would be, if .eggs were a packaging format, rather than a binary 
> distribution/runtime format.
>
> Remember "eggs are to Python as jars are to Java" -- a Java .jar 
> doesn't contain documentation either, unless it's needed at 
> runtime.  Same for configuration files.
>   
But there's generally no need to easily have a look into a .class file 
with a tool the user
is used to whereas for python, we're often interested in knowing the 
details. And having
a zip file in my way to the source has left me frustrated often enough.

If you want to be consequent and consistent leave out the .py files from 
eggs, a jar file
normally doesn't contain .java sources files either.

> They're not system packages, in other words.  The assumption that 
> they are is another marketing failure, due to conflation of "package 
> == distribution of python code" and "package == thing you manage with 
> a system packager".  People see, "I put my package in an .egg" and 
> think it's the latter definition, when it's barely even the former.  :)
>   
I agree that they are not system packages, but I would have prefered to 
install multiple versions
of a package to separate "site-packages" directories, something that is 
really well understood by
most unsofisticated python programmers. The selection of the version 
could then be made at
runtime by a PYTHONPATH setting and not by fiddling with .pth files 
(something that could
be autmated by a tool and persisted in batch files).