[Python-Dev] setuptools in 2.5. (original) (raw)

Fredrik Lundh fredrik at pythonware.com
Thu Apr 20 07:31:23 CEST 2006

Anthony Baxter wrote:

- Multiple installs of different versions of the same package, including per-user installs.

yeah, but where is the documentation on how this works ? phillip points to a 30-page API description, which says absolutely nothing whatsoever about the files I'm going to find on my machine after doing a setuptools- based installation, how those files are used, and what I can do with them myself.

maybe it's nice to have a big abstraction with a dozen classes and inter- faces, but if not even the developer can describe the concrete things be- neath the abstractions, something's not entirely right. especially when the developer don't even seem to understand why anyone would care, when he's already written all the code.

::: and yes, for the record, setuptools has already created one support mess for me, where the "gotta protect the average users from how this really works" approach resulted in many average users not being able to get things to work at all, even after trying out a magic workaround that someone provided (along the lines of "python -msomething --something walla walla/" - note the trailing slash, will do something else without it).

and I wasn't even using setuptools myself. not that the users cared about that; setuptools told them that my stuff didn't work, and couldn't be installed, so of course they contacted me.

::: but if this is so obvious, maybe someone could whip up a brief overview document, that support volunteers like myself can refer to when people get stuck ? (preferrably someone who isn't Phillip, to prove that some- one else actually understands all the relevant details). if not a PEP, at least a FAQ entry ?

pointing people to a couple of hundred pages of API and option listings won't really work. and "look in the distutils archives" won't work either.

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