[Python-Dev] Distutils and Distribute roadmap (and some words on Virtualenv, Pip) (original) (raw)

Toshio Kuratomi a.badger at gmail.com
Thu Oct 8 20:35:08 CEST 2009

On Thu, Oct 08, 2009 at 06:56:19PM +0200, kiorky wrote:

Toshio Kuratomi a écrit : > > Also note, the ability to have multiple versions makes things easier for > system packagers and provides an easy alternative to a virtualenv for > end-users. > > * System packagers: virtualenv does not provide a method suitable for system Yes, there is no doubt virtualenv is useless for system packagers but: * System and applications deployment have not to be tied. It s up to the user to install things system wide or to use locally isolation technics. Virtualenv is one of those. As a conclusion, there are not very much problem for system packagers as if their users have specific needs, they will do something Outside the system. If not, they use their global python with packages installed in that global one. This misses the point. If there's two pieces of software to be deployed via system packages and they use two different versions of a module, it's currently not very easy to do this. I do it with setuptools curently even with all its warts. Having a way to do this from within the stdlib that tied directly into the import mechanism would make for a much cleaner situation.

In other words, the suggestion that there is no need for a method to install multiple versions of a module because virtualenv is a better solution is bogus. virtualenv is a better solution for creating isolated environments. It is not a solution for all of the cases that being able to install multiple versions of a library would be.

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