[Python-Dev] Edits to Metadata 1.2 to add extras (optional dependencies) (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Tue Aug 28 16:47:55 CEST 2012

Prepare for a ten-year period of acceptance - so it would be good to be sure that no further additions are desired within the next ten years before seeking approval for the PEP. However, this point I really don't agree with. The packaging ecosystem is currently evolving outside the standard library, but the standardisation process for the data interchange formats still falls under the authority of python-dev and the PEP process.

Maybe I misphrased. By "accepted" I meant "widely implemented". From the day this gets published until it is really usable, I still believe 10 years is realistic. For example, setuptools doesn't implement Meta-data 1.2, and nearly nobody uses it, 8 years after it was written.

When the packaging module is finally added (hopefully 3.4, even if that means we have to temporarily cull the entire compiler subpackage), it will handle the most recent accepted version of the metadata format (as well as any previous versions). If more holes reveal themselves in the next 18 months, then it's OK if v1.4 is created when it becomes clear that it's necessary.

The problem is that flooding people with specifications is a guarantee that they will not get implemented. So we can have one metadata specification every ten years; if we have more, none of them will be implemented (except in the tool of the author of the PEP).

Regards, Martin

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list