On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 4:15 PM, P.J. Eby <p...@telecommunity.com> wrote: > At 11:46 AM 3/7/2011 +0100, Lennart Regebro wrote: >> >> I'll make a note of this in the documentation to clear it up. >> Distutils2 is definitely in the minority at the moment when it comes >> to calling them "projects". > > The term has been in use in setuptools since around 2005, but it hasn't > caught on much outside of the small group of people who need to be able to > speak precisely about the concept. ;-) > > If you search the sig archives, though, you will find that it gets proposed > and mostly-approved every time the topic comes up, of what to call these > "things we distribute releases of". The more-or-less consensus terminology > (for people who need a precise terminology): > > package = thing you import in Python that contains modules > project = thing you make releases of > release = one version of a project > distribution = a file that embodies the release of a project (may be source > or binary)
+1 > People who don't care about precision just call everything a package, pretty > much. Heck, a lot of times I find myself starting to type "package" when > I'm really talking about a project, release, or distribution, despite > promoted the more-precise terminology for half a decade or so. ;-) The root of the problem, IMO, is Python's (mis)use of the name "package" for what is really only a nested module. Heck: >>> import distutils >>> distutils <module 'distutils' ...> Given that Python 3 is a reboot, maybe it's time for the Python community to start calling these what ``python`` calls them, "modules". If what we now call "packages" were called "modules", then we could start using the term "package" the way everyone else does. I think lots of people would be less confused. Otherwise, I prefer we try hard to use the precise definitions above. This topic can be confusing enough without making it more so through sloppy terminology. Jim -- Jim Fulton http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimfulton _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - Distutils-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
