[Python-Dev] Raising objections (was: setuptools in the stdlib) (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Wed Apr 19 07:33:10 CEST 2006

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 14:57 +1000, Anthony Baxter wrote:

I'm not sure how people would prefer this be handled. I don't think we need to have a PEP for it - I don't see PEPs for ctypes, elementtree, pysqlite or cProfile, either.

Agreed. If modules like these have a solid history of use outside the stdlib I don't think we need all the formality of a PEP to pull them in. I /do/ think however that we need to be diligent in documenting them so that people who don't follow python-dev (or the packages own development forums) will become aware of what they are and how to use them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any of the above are currently documented in the stdlib.

I don't have a problem at all with setuptools going into the standard library. It adds a whole pile of extremely useful functionality (easyinstall, in particular, is something that people have been asking for, constantly, for YEARS). Making it an additional install is just silly.

I agree. My one stupid nit is that I don't like the name 'easy_install'. I wish a better, non-underscored word could be found. But as I've been a total bystander in setuptools development, I have no real standing to complain. ;)

I started refactoring some of the ugliness out of the internals of distutils last year, but was completely stymied by the demand that no existing setup.py scripts be broken. This means that the people who are experts with the current code are fine, but everyone else has to pay the price.

I've written some nasty setup.py scripts and I for one would be all for breaking them and rewriting them if they could be done much more simply and were better integrated with external tools. Heck, I wouldn't even mind a big ol' "if sys.hexversion" at the top of them for backward compatibility for a while if necessary.

-Barry

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