Please don't use "setuptools", the "rotten .egg" install system.

[Lele Gaifax]

John Nagle <nagle at animats.com> writes:

> On 1/19/2012 12:56 AM, Lele Gaifax wrote:
>> John Nagle<nagle at animats.com>  writes:
>>
>>> "egg" files are usually more trouble than they're worth.
>>
>> I find it really funny you say so, just after another thread where you
>> proved yourself unable to come up with a working Python environment
>> lacking an already packaged RPM of version 2.7...
>
>     I can do it, I just have better things to do than system
> administration.  The fact that Python doesn't "just work" is
> part of why it's losing market share.

Hopefully whining and asserting doubtful things here are not "the [only]
better things" you have to do :-)

>> I know "egg" are not standard, but these days are still the only way to
>> install Python-related stuff that includes precompiled stuff
>
> If it can be built with "python setup.py build", go that way.

I wasn't able to make the point clear: imagine you wrote one beatiful
web widget built in Flash, what would you prefer, distribute just that
widget with your Python module that uses it, or forcing the recipient to
have a Flash compiler on its own and compile it every time you install
the package? If the latter, why are you running on RH instead of (say)
Gentoo??


> A "setup.py" script, invoked with the correct Python, reliably
> knows which Python it is supposed to update.  "egg" files
> usually have trouble with that.

Never had that problem, but please, define "usually" and "trouble".

> Prebuilt systems should use the installer for the distro, and work
> with yum, apt-get, or the Windows installer as appropriate.

Why should I, when one format fits 'em all? I'm not against
"proprietary" mechanism, but I surely see the benefit of an easier way
of deploying my custom packages.

> It does seem to be necessary to install the development tools
> on a Linux system just to get various Python packages to install.
> Major packages are still all over the place.
> PyPy is just a directory of links, not a repository like CPAN.

You surely meant PyPI there... but even then, I cannot see the
point. It's evidently easy enough pushing there yet-another-link
pointing to a prebuilt egg...

> Python sort of slips through the cracks.  Nobody is doing
> the work to make PyPy handle these problems, and Python isn't
> important enough for MySQL, etc. to support the connector for
> the language.  (They support Perl, C, Java, etc., but not
> Python.)

Yet another OT argument but... hopefully nobody is forcing you to stay
on the losing side of the market :-)

Anyway, to me MySQL isn't important enough for Python, there are way
better DB engines out there to invest my time with.

ciao, lele.
-- 
nickname: Lele Gaifax | Quando vivrò di quello che ho pensato ieri
real: Emanuele Gaifas | comincerò ad aver paura di chi mi copia.
lele at metapensiero.it  |                 -- Fortunato Depero, 1929.