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

[Tres Seaver]

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Olemis Lang wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:
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>> Barry Warsaw wrote:
>>> On Mar 25, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote:
>>>
>>>> For case one, where I want to install additional functionality into my
>>>> system Python interpreter "forever", it would be great to have my
>>>> system
>>>> manage this.
>>> In fact, I think it /has/ to.  I'll go further and say that I'm very
>>> wary of using easy_install and the like to install non-distro provided
>>> packages into the system Python.  Many Linux distros require a
>>> functioning system Python to operate and the distros (should) take
>>> great care to make sure that if you install package X for application
>>> Y, you won't break essential system service Z.  Once you start
>>> installing your own stuff in the system Python's site-packages, you
>>> break the warranty.
>> Exactly:  I never use easy_isntall to put packages into the system
>> python.  in fact, I only use it inside a virtalenv-generated isolated
>> environment.
>>
>>
> 
> What about the proposal I made about the smarter easy_install ...
> isn't that just enough ?

A shared 'site-packages' directory can't possible be sane for an
arbitrary number of applications:  the versions / dependencies installed
to satisfy one app's requirements are going to conflict eventually with
those needed by another.

I treat the 'system' library stuff as the provicne of the package
manager, and keep my own apps in their own, isolated environments, as
created by one or more of:

 - a separately-compiled Python

 - a virtualenv

 - zc.builtout.

Note that the kind of applications I work on tend to be the sort which
will run as server apps, and which will (in production) be the entire
rasion d'etre for the machine they run on, which makes the cost of
isolation tiny compared to the consequences of failed isolation.


Tres.
- --
===================================================================
Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
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