[Python-Dev] PEP 376 proposed changes for basic plugins support

[Michael Foord]

On 02/08/2010 19:05, Holger Krekel wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Ian Bicking<ianb at colorstudy.com>  wrote:
>    
>> Just to add a general opinion in here:
>>
>> Having worked with Setuptools' entry points, and a little with some Zope
>> pluginish systems (Products.*, which I don't think anyone liked much, and
>> some ways ZCML is used is pluginish), I'm not very excited about these.  The
>> plugin system that causes the least confusion and yet seems to accomplish
>> everything it needs is just listing objects in configuration -- nothing gets
>> activated implicitly with installation, and names are Python package/object
>> names without indirection.
>>      
> This makes it a two-step process to use a plugin: install it and then
> configure it correctly to have it used.
>
> I'd much prefer a one-step process and rather provide a way to not-use
> a plugin even if installed.  The difference is e.g. with py.test that i can
> point users to e.g.
>
>    pip install pytest-figleaf
>    py.test --figleaf
>    

How do you achieve this currently?

Michael

> instead of also having to explain a configuration file, its location
> and exact content or some magic attribute variables on some
> classes.
>
> TBH, i'd like to have pip handle plugins, based on metadata
> (especially some data signaling something is a plugin of otherthing).
> This way i only once have to teach about "pip" and people leverage
>   their knowledge for installing/managing plugins.
>
> best,
> holger
>
>    
>> The only thing I'd want to add is the ability to
>> also point to files, as a common use for plugins is adding ad hoc
>> functionality to an application, and the overhead of package creation isn't
>> always called for.  hg for example seems both simple and general enough, and
>> it doesn't use anything fancy.
>>
>> Purely for the purpose of discovery and documentation it might be helpful to
>> have APIs, then some tool could show available plugins (especially if PyPI
>> had a query interface for this), or at least installed plugins, with the
>> necessary code to invoke them.
>>
>> *Maybe* it would make sense to generalize the discovery of plugin types, so
>> that you can simply refer to an object and the application can determine
>> what kind of plugin it is.  But having described this, it actually doesn't
>> seem like a useful thing to generalize.
>>
>> --
>> Ian Bicking  |  http://blog.ianbicking.org
>>
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>>      
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