[Python-Dev] PEP 376 - Open questions

[Paul Moore]

2009/7/9 Eric Smith <eric at trueblade.com>:
> P.J. Eby wrote:
>>>
>>> ISTM that the problem that it solves is uninstall in the absence of
>>> the original installer.
>>
>> Or uninstall where the installer is "setup.py install", actually.
>
> I think we need to move away from "setup.py install". It's the antithesis of
> static metadata. setup.py needs to go away.
>
> If we have a static metadata file called, say "setup.info", then I'd like to
> see:
> "bdist_rpm setup.info" produce a .rpm
> "bdist_msi setup.info" produce a .msi
> "bdist_deb setup.info" produce a .deb
> "bdist_egg setup.info" produce a .egg
> and so on.
>
> There might be a library (and I call dibs on the name "distlib" :) that
> provides support routines to parse setup.info, but there's no framework
> involved. And no need for a plugin system.

+1. Now who's going to design & write it?

> It's the conflation of "build a package" with "install a package" that
> distutils and setuptools has given us (via setup.py) that leads to us never
> making progress. Let's just focus on "describe a package" and let the
> packagers handle "build a package" and let the installers handle "install
> and uninstall a package". Then the packagers (and their associated
> installers) can evolve independently of each other.

There still needs to be some sort of package build system. I do *not*
want to see a situation where users can't easily build their own
packages. Not all systems have all Python packages packaged up by
"official" system packagers...

Paul