[Python-Dev] Fwd: PEP 426 is now the draft spec for distribution metadata 2.0

[Donald Stufft]

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 2:48 AM, Chris Jerdonek wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com (mailto:dholth at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > Sorry, Chris must have meant http://hg.python.org/distlib/ . I was
> > struggling to imagine a world where that is more visible than something on
> > bitbucket.
> >  
>  
>  
> I meant that bringing distlib into http://hg.python.org/cpython/ would
> give it more visibility to core devs and others that already keep an
> eye on python-checkins (the mailing list). And I think seeing the
> Sphinx-processed docs integrated and cross-referenced with
> http://docs.python.org/dev/ will help people understand better what
> has been done and how it fits in with the rest of CPython -- which I
> think would be useful to the community. It may also encourage
> involvement (e.g. by being part of the main tracker).
>  
>  

On the other hand it makes contributing to it more annoying since it
does not have pull requests, unless it was just a mirror.  
> In asking about the "plan" for doing this, I was thinking of the
> following remark by Nick:
>  
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:40 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com (mailto:ncoghlan at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 11:23 PM, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com (mailto:mal at egenix.com)> wrote:
> > >  
> > > Hmm, what is distlib and where does it live ?
> >  
> > As part of the post-mortem of packaging's removal from Python 3.3,
> > several subcomponents were identified as stable and useful. distlib is
> > those subcomponents extracted into a separate repository by Vinay
> > Sajip.
> >  
> > It will be proposed as the standard library infrastructure for
> > building packaging related tools, while distutils will become purely a
> > build system and have nothing to do with installing software directly
> > (except perhaps on developer machines).
> >  
>  
>  
> My question was basically whether there was a tentative plan for when
> it (or completed parts of it) will be proposed (e.g. when a certain
> amount of functionality is completed, etc). It's better not to do
> this at the last minute if 3.4 is the plan (as I think was attempted
> with packaging but for 3.3).
>  
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info (mailto:steve at pearwood.info)> wrote:
> >  
> > I keep hearing people say that the stdlib is not important, but I don't
> > think
> > that is true. There are lots of people who have problems with anything not
> > in
> > the standard library.
> >  
> > - Beginners often have difficulty (due to inexperience, lack of confidence
> > or
> > knowledge) in *finding*, let alone installing and using, packages that
> > aren't
> > in the standard library.
> >  
> > - To people in the Linux world, adding anything outside of your distro's
> > packaging system is a nuisance. No matter how easy your packaging library
> > makes it, you now have two sorts of packages: first-class packages that
> > your distro will automatically update for you, and second-class ones that
> > aren't.
> >  
> > - People working in restrictive corporate systems often have to jump through
> > flaming hoops before installing software.
> >  
>  
>  
> I would also add that for people new to writing Python modules and
> that want to distribute them, it's hard to evaluate what they are
> "supposed" to use (distutils, setuptools, distribute, bento, etc).
> Just a day or two ago, this exact question was asked on the Distutils
> mailing list with subject "Confusion of a hobby programmer." Code not
> being in the standard library creates an extra mental hurdle to
> overcome.
>  
>  

I agree that eventually the stdlib needs standard tooling to work with the future (™) but
until that future is in use adding it to the stdlib feels premature to me.  

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