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

Fredrik Lundh fredrik at pythonware.com
Sat Apr 22 19:24:09 CEST 2006

Phillip J. Eby wrote:

>(frankly, do you think there's any experienced developer out there >whos first thought when asked the question "how do I create a tightly >controlled Python environment" isn't either "can I solve this by tweaking >sys.path in my application?" or "disk space is cheap, bugs are expensive; >let's use a separate install", spends 15 minutes setting that up, checks >in the result, and goes back to working on the hard stuff...)

Clearly, we're not dealing with "experienced" developers, then.

the paragraph you're quoting used "experienced" in the context of "having solved this problem before".

Of course even now that it's easy to do, some people still gripe that setting up a separate install is too "heavy".

what forums are we talking about here? (if this kind of complaints were common on c.l.python, for example, I think I would have noticed...)

Anyway, while we're projecting about people's attitudes, what's with this "Real Programmers Should Build It Themselves" attitude?

because that's what Python is all about: making things so easy that every- one can build things with a minimum of effort, according to their specific requirements. "a lot of action in a small amount of clear code", as some- one once put it.

that doesn't rule out helpful libraries and utilities and cookbook examples, but a "we have a prepackaged solution for you, it's the only solution you'll ever need, and you don't really need to know how it works" approach doesn't strike me as very Pythonic.

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