On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Russell E. Owen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> I have a few questions and comments about the Mac binary of matplotlib
> 0.98.3:
> matplotlib-0.98.3-py2.5-macosx-10.3.egg.zip
>
> A few things struck me as scary:
> - There are no instructions; when you unzip it you get just an egg and
> that's it. I was able to find the magic incantation on the web, and
> fortunately I already have easy_install installed. But it would be a big
> help to have a ReadMe that tells how to install easy_install and how to
> use it to install the egg.
Technically you are not supposed to unzip the package by hand. At most we
could put some info on the website, but you can't really add a readme inside
of the egg.
>
> - The zipped egg includes dateutil and pytz. But I already have those
> installed (both due to using older matplotlib and because I use dateutil
> in my own code), so now I have two sets in different locations. This is
> worrisome. Which one will get used? Does it matter if I import dateutil
> first or matplotlib first? (I deleted the versions in the matplotlib egg
> to remove doubt.)
These still need to be included for those who do not have them installed.
(except for what you mention next)
>
> I thought easy_install could handle dependencies (and indeed, per the
> next item, it seemed to be trying to do so). If so, couldn't it only
> install them if not already present?
True. We probably still bundle them since this is what has historically
been done. We don't list numpy as a dependency -- even though it is --
because they don't supply eggs for all platforms.
>
>
> - When I ran easy_install it started searching the web and installing
> stuff. But what was it downloading and installing? The messages were
> very vague. I already had dateutil and pytz, so did the egg, so it would
> be crazy for it to download those. But what in the world else could it
> possibly need? Surely the freetype and png are already statically linked
> in (or perhaps it's using Apple's freetype). Surely it doesn't want to
> download those as libraries and install them? Surely it would not
> install wxpython, since that is optional?
This has been discussed a little on the lists. To sum up, setuptools
doesn't like universal binaries. For some reason it installs the egg fine,
but then tries to install from source.
>
> I do appreciate the effort that goes into producing these binaries. (I
> used to make a matplotlib package installer for pythonmac.org and was
> glad to give it up.) And the results do seem to work.
Thanks for the feedback. I promise I am not trying to be short with you,
but I don't have much time to respond before I need to run out. I keep
telling myself I will find the time to contribute a patch to setuptools to
support fat binaries, but we can't do much for now.
Thanks,
- Charlie
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/
_______________________________________________
Matplotlib-devel mailing list
Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
