[Python-Dev] Fwd: PEP 426 is now the draft spec for distribution metadata 2.0 (original) (raw)

Paul Moore p.f.moore at gmail.com
Wed Feb 20 09:02:39 CET 2013

On 20 February 2013 04:07, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:

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On 02/19/2013 09:37 PM, Paul Moore wrote: On 20 February 2013 00:54, Fred Drake <fred at fdrake.net> wrote:

I'd posit that anything successful will no longer need to be added to the standard library, to boot. Packaging hasn't done well there.

distlib may be the exception, though. Packaging tools are somewhat unique because of the chicken and egg issue involved in having a packaging tool with external dependencies - who installs your dependencies for you? So enabling technology (library code to perform packaging-related tasks, particularly in support of standardised formats) could be better available from the stdlib. The big blocker there is that users can't rely on having it in the stdlib until after they drop Python < 3.4 (assuming accelearated absorption) or even 3.5.

Understood - that's why I suggested that distlib reach a point where it's stable as an external package and supported on (some) older versions. I'm hoping for an experience more like unittest2 than packaging/distutils2.

But we shouldn't be blocking new stdlib features just because they won't be available in older Python versions... Paul

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