Hello, I've noticed there is a Cookbook dedicated to distutils at http://wiki.python.org/moin/Distutils/Cookbook
It looks a little deserted, so before asking to include my own specific problem into this Cookbook I would like to ask if developers are interested in using Cookbook approach as a supplement to a PEP. PEPs are good at presenting a solution, but bad at collecting primary information for testing the proposal. For example, most of us would like to see setuptools distributed with Python instead of downloading bootstrap script again and again. But there is already distutils module, so we should concentrate on enhancing it instead. But there is another but - distutils can not be enhanced, because... (well, why?) ... I can only suggest that distutils can not be enhanced, because it needs serious redesign, because it lacks too many features and there is a fear that redesign can break existing API and nobody can step in, because it is all the way too complex. But if there was a primary Cookbook page with listing of all the tasks you need distutils for and tasks you need setuptools for, it will be possible to port feature-by-feature. Having such page may save some time and present a tutorial and a reference for people who occasionally use setuptools to distribute their application without wasting too much time studying all the gory details of distutils/setuptools API. I've noticed that many developers find it hard to find an entrypoint into proper way to distribute their apps/modules, because of the lack of time. Don't you think that documentation for these people is something to be considered more seriously than PEP implementation or even the primary thing to start with? As for my specific problem - is there a way to specify dependency required to _install_ a package, so that easy_install would download that dependency prior to executing setup.py? --anatoly t. _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
