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

Paul Moore p.f.moore at gmail.com
Fri Mar 27 00:27:01 CET 2009


2009/3/26 Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org>:
> Let me clarify my position: I just want the functionality (preferably in the
> stdlib); I don't really care how it's spelled (except please not
> pkg_resource.whatever() :).

Agreed. My one major reservation is that conceptually, the whole
pkg_resource infrastructure seems stunningly complex (at this point
PJE pops up to point out that it's not, really, and I'm confusing
pkg_resource with setuptools, or eggs, or some such - let's just say
it makes my head hurt, and defer judgement on whether that's a comment
about pkg_resource or my head :-))

What I'd really like is essentially some form of "virtual filesystem"
access to stuff addressed relative to a Python package name, rather
than to a filesystem path. How much filesystem functionality is
required is somewhat up for debate, but the basic listdir, get
(text/binary) contents, open (text/binary) stream would be a good
start (as Guido pointed out). I know of one or two packages that might
benefit from write access (clearly not available for all loaders -
zipfiles and URLs couldn't do it, but the filesystem and something
like a database could...) But that's just details - the principle
still applies.

Paul.


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