[Python-Dev] "setuptools has divided the Python community"

[Tennessee Leeuwenburg]

GSOC?

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Steven Bethard <steven.bethard at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I use Python for systems admin scripts, Windows services, and database
> > management. In my experience (and I agree, it's only one, limited, use
> > case) availability of download-and-run bdist_wininst installers for
> > every package I used was the only significant requirement I had for
> > Python package distribution (I remember pre-distutils days, when being
> > able to install a 3rd party package on Windows was a nightmare of
> > build-it-yourself guesswork).
> >
> > Since setuptools came on the scene, I can state with some certainty
> > that many packages which would otherwise have been distributed as
> > bdist_wininst installers, now aren't. In some cases, only source
> > packages are provided (on the basis that easy_install will build what
> > you need). In those cases, I can accept that maybe the developer would
> > not have built Windows installers even before setuptools arrived. But
> > in a significant number of cases - including setuptools itself!!!! -
> > binary, version-specific eggs for Windows are provided, but no
> > bdist_wininst installers. If the developer is willing to build an egg,
> > he could just as easily have built an installer - but he now has to
> > choose - build one or the other, or both. And not everyone chooses the
> > same way.
>
> I'd just like to chime in and agree with Paul here. I'm a Windows
> user, and I won't install a Python module that I can't get as a
> wininst (or preferably a .msi), because I prefer to use the Windows
> package management system, not some Python specific thing. I can
> generally build installers myself for Python-only packages, but binary
> ones are harder. And I've seen several projects with exactly the kind
> of thing Paul describes - where a good Windows installer would
> probably have been available if it weren't for the interference of
> setuptools.
>
> Steve
> --
> I'm not *in*-sane. Indeed, I am so far *out* of sane that you appear a
> tiny blip on the distant coast of sanity.
>        --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy
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-- 
--------------------------------------------------
Tennessee Leeuwenburg
http://myownhat.blogspot.com/
"Don't believe everything you think"
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