[Python-Dev] PEP 376

[Paul Moore]

2009/7/1 R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com>:
> I haven't read the PEP in detail since it's outside my area of interest
> and knowledge(*), but my understanding of the goal is that the PEP is
> providing an _infrastructure_ for system-level package management tools.
> The uninstall function is part of that infrastructure, but since
> distutils isn't a package manager itself (it's an install program),
> distutils as currently organized can't really handle uninstall except
> as outlined in a section you may have clipped from the above context
> (ie: when setup.py from the original package is available).

>From a Windows user's POV, "install program" = "package manager". And
an install program needs an uninstall feature. I know Linux users with
their advanced dependency-managing package managers feel that this is
a stone-age view, and they may be right, but the PEP needs to take the
Windows situation into account.

> The question is what do the people who do real package management
> (linux distribution level package management and the equivalent) think?
> I'm guessing they are happy with just having the function for their
> package management tools to call when needed, since (I'm hoping) they
> are part of the distutils sig....

Don't forget that the maintainers of the bdist_wininst, bdist_msi and
bdist_rpm code *are* the distutils maintainers - so to that extent,
the PEP has to say how *those* aspects of package managers are
covered. Unless another PEP is accepted saying that support for
bdist_xxx is being dropped [1], this part of distutils cannot be
ignored.

>
> So, if my understanding of the overall goal is correct, it looks to me
> like the PEP is missing a "motivation" section that talks about system
> package managers.

Possibly. If so, though, it must discuss the above 3 cases which are
part of core distutils.

Paul.

[1] A PEP I plan on strongly opposing!