On Jun 17, 2009, at 6:07 PM, Trent Mick wrote:
I've changed the sdist command some time ago, so it uses the sdtilb
tarfile module, instead of the "tar" command,
meaning that we could switch to the tar format under windows by
default as well now, not requiring the "tar" program anymore
But some people may prefer the zip format.
What are your opinion on this ?
My preferences is for .zip (that is what I use for my packages), the
main reason is that Windows users can always unpack a .zip file. Often
that is not true for .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 files.
This reference is ancient, but the argument is valid, IMO:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/some_notes_on_the_building_of_codezoo.php
...
Where there were multiple versions available, we chose the most
recent, stable version and made that the default. Where there were
multiple packages, we chose the Zip format (which is widely
available on any platform) and got rid or tar.gz, tar.bz, .exe, and
everything else we could. If there were many parts of the
component, we defaulted to the one file that gave the user the most
value in a single download. Other files, versions, and packages
fell to the bottom of the page -- available for the users that
absolutely need it, but far from distracting for the users that
just want to get their work done. Reducing choices makes the site
more useful, not less.
...
The tradeoff is that .zip files are compressed as well. But I don't
believe that difference in compression size between
.zip/.tar.gz/.tar.bz2 is that big of a concern in *most* cases because
most Python sdist's are small, are they not?
Zip files don't support symbolic links(and maybe unix permissions/
ownership). Maybe tarek could include a python script in tools to
uncompress tar files so you can always be sure that there is support
for it even on windows.
Is support for symbolic links(unix permissions/ownership) important?
--
Leonardo Santagada
santagada at gmail.com
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