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

Sridhar Ratnakumar sridharr at activestate.com
Thu Oct 8 21:35:22 CEST 2009

On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:52:57 -0700, Michael Foord
<fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk> wrote:

I don't recall ever having wanted / needed to install multiple versions of the same library - whilst I can appreciate that it can be a real issue it has never been a problem for me.

Multiple versions is going to be a mess. It is a pathetic workaround for packages that do not care about backward compatibility (eg: CherryPy-2.x vs CherryPy-3.x). Drop support for multiple versions to force package authors to deal with it.

I applaud the Jinja team for doing this:

 ARMIN: The final version of the Jinja2 Django-inspired template
 engine was just released. It comes with tons of improvements over
 the older Jinja1 engine and breaks backwards compatibility to some
 point over the old Jinja1 engine. It's packaged as a separate
 package so that you can use both right next to each other for an
 easier transition.

http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2008/7/17/jinja2-final-aka-jinjavitus-released

This is something the Python community can also learn from the Perl world.

-srid

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