[Python-Dev] Status of packaging in 3.3

[Chris McDonough]

On 06/21/2012 11:45 AM, PJ Eby wrote:
>
> On Jun 21, 2012 10:12 AM, "Chris McDonough" <chrism at plope.com
> <mailto:chrism at plope.com>> wrote:
>  > - Install "package resources", which are non-Python source files that
>  >  happen to live in package directories.
>
> I love this phrasing, by the way ("non-Python source files").
>
> A pet peeve of mine is the insistence by some people that such files are
> "data" and don't belong in package directories, despite the fact that if
> you gave them a .py extension and added data="""...""" around them,
> they'd be considered part of the code.  A file's name and internal
> format aren't what distinguishes code from data; it's the way it's
> *used* that matters.
>
> I think "packaging" has swung the wrong way on this particular point,
> and that resources and data files should be distinguished in setup.cfg,
> with sysadmins *not* being given the option to muck about with resources
> -- especially not to install them in locations where they might be
> mistaken for something editable.

+1.  A good number of the "package resource" files we deploy are not 
data files at all.  In particular, a lot of them are files which 
represent HTML templates.  These templates are exclusively the domain of 
the software being installed, and considering them explicitly "more 
editable" than the Python source they sit next to in the package 
structure is a grave mistake.  They have exactly the same editability 
candidacy as the Python source files they are mixed in with.

- C