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

[Paul Moore]

2009/7/6 Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com>:
> 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.

That suits me too. I'm happy for the name to stay as it is.

Paul.