[Tutor] setup.py "script" vs "console_scripts" Was: if __name__=='main' vs entry points: What to teach new comers?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 12:56:56PM +0200, Chris Warrick wrote:

> While setuptools is not officially part of the stdlib,

This is the critical factor. How can you use *by default* something that 
is *NOT* supplied by default?

Obviously you cannot. It is physically impossible.


> it *is*
> recommended by the official documentation, the dev team, and it’s
> available pretty much everywhere.

Maybe if your concept of "everywhere" is limited to the subset of Python 
users who have a Linux distro and the permission (both the computer 
privileges and the legal authority) to install software on the computer 
they are using.

But this does NOT hold for everyone, possibly not even for the majority 
of Python users. For example: 

- students using their school's computers;

- corporate and government users using a SOE (Standard Operating
  Environment);

- people using a system where, for policy reasons, only the 
  standard library is permitted.

(E.g. they have their software audited for compliance with licencing and 
malware, the std lib has been audited but third party libraries have 
not. It might take literally months to get permission to install even a 
simple third party library.)

I've worked in places where installing unauthorized software was a 
firing offence.


> setuptools can’t be in stdlib,
> because it’s moving too fast for stdlib to keep up.

The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that it isn't available by 
default, so it cannot be the default.


> Look here: http://pythonwheels.com/ — 254 of the top 360 packages on
> PyPI use wheels. It means that at least that many use setuptools;
> sometimes with a distutils fallback, but often without one. Moreover,
> many of the packages without wheels use setuptools as well.

All this tells me is that many third party packages choose the 
*convenient* choice, not the *default* choice.

That is their right, of course. Nobody says otherwise.

And of course the sort of users who cannot install setuptools likewise 
cannot install their package, so the developers might not care about 
people without setuptools. But that hardly makes it the *default*. It 
just makes it the more popular option.


> The sane default choice is entry_points.

Only if your definition of "sane" or "default" is different from mine.



-- 
Steve