[Python-Dev] Packaging and binary distributions for Python 3.3 (original) (raw)

Vinay Sajip vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk
Sun Oct 16 22:38:11 CEST 2011

Martin v. Löwis <martin v.loewis.de> writes:

In particular wrt. virtual environments: I see no need to actually install files multiple times. It's rather sufficient that the distributions to be installed are available in the virtual env after installation, and unavailable after being removed. Actually copying them into the virtual environment might not be necessary or useful.

So I envision a setup where the MSI file puts the binaries into a place on disk where pysetup (or whatever tool) finds them, and links them whereever they need to go (using whatever linking mechanism might work). For MSI in particular, there could be some interaction with pysetup, e.g. to register all virtualenvs that have linked the installation, and warn the user that the file is still in use in certain locations. Likewise, automated download might pick an MSI file, and tell it not to place itself into the actual Python installation, but instead into a location where pysetup will find it.

While it seems a little inelegant, copying might actually be simpler and less error-prone. Firstly, AFAIK you can't do true symlinks in relatively recent, widely-used versions of Windows like XP. Also, while some people use virtualenvs in a central location (such as virtualenvwrapper users), others have their envs under a project folder. I don't know that the complication of a centralised registry of virtual envs is necessarily a good thing.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip

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