[Python-Dev] magic in setuptools (Was: setuptools in the stdlib) (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Apr 20 23:08:34 CEST 2006

Ronald Oussoren wrote:

As far as I understand the issues they compete up to a point, but should also make it easier to create platform packages that contain proper the proper dependencies because those are part of machine-readable meta-data instead of being written down in readme files. Oddly enough that was also the objection from one linux distribution maintainer: somehow his opinion was that the author of a package couldn't possibly know the right depedencies for it.

What he can't possibly know is the name of the package he depends on. For example, a distutils package might be called 'setuptools', so developers of additional packages might depend on 'setuptools'. However, on Debian, the dependency should be different: The package should depend on either 'python-setuptools' or 'python2.3-setuptools', depending on details which are off-topic here.

As for platform packages: not all platforms have useable packaging systems. MacOSX is one example of those, the system packager is an installer and doesn't include an uninstaller. Eggs make it a lot easier to manage python software in such an environment (and please don't point me to Fink or DarwinPorts on OSX, those have serious problems of their own).

Isn't uninstallation just a matter of deleting a directory? If I know that I want to uninstall the Python package 'foo', I just delete its directory. Now, with setuptools, I might have multiple versions installed, so I have to chose (in Finder) which of them I want to delete.

That doesn't require Eggs to be single-file zipfiles; deleting a directory would work just as will (and I believe it will work with ez_install, too).

Package authors will refuse to produce them, putting the burden of package maintenance (what packages are installed, what are their dependencies, when should I remove a package) onto the the end user/system administrator. Philip has added specific support for them: it is possible to install packages in the tradition way but with some additional files that tell setuptools about installed packages.

As a system administrator, I don't want to learn how to install Python packages. I know how to install RPMs (or MSIs, or whatever system I manage); this should be good enough. If "this Python junk" comes with its own installer procedure, I will hate it.

Regards, Martin

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