[Python-Dev] PEP 376 and PEP 302 - allowing import hooks to provide distribution metadata

[Nick Coghlan]

P.J. Eby wrote:
> So, I'm +1 for no change (obviously), and +0 for "always .pydist in 3.x
> and always .egg-info in 2.x", whether the latter part is achieved by
> making distutils/pkgutil use a version-dependent extension, or by
> refusing to backport distutils/pkgutil to 2.x.  I'm -1 for having
> .pydist ever appear on a 2.x Python, either via stdlib or backporting.
> 
> (These comments also apply for any name other than '.pydist'.)

Thanks for the explanation - Before this message I didn't fully grasp
*how* installing a directory containing files that the other packages
might not understand would help with the backwards compatibility problem.

Now I understand that aspect better (i.e. it isn't a matter of
"setuptools won't change" but "the user might already have an old
version of setuptools/pip/etc on their system, or be installing a
package that uses an old version of one of those libraries for its
installer"), I no longer think it is worth the hassle of trying to use a
"prettier" name for the metadata directory. So +1 on keeping the same
extension name and -1 on the idea of changing it to anything other than
the existing ".egg-info".

I believe the idea of having different names in 2.x and 3.x would likely
cause too many problems for simple bdist_* installers of modules that
use only the common 2.x/3.x language subset, so I'm also -1 on that idea.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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