Shane Hathaway wrote: [snip]
I'm sure Fred is doing excellent work, but I'm having trouble seeing why we need zpkgtools. Is it not sufficient to just "python setup.py install" all of Zope 3? I've been doing that with Zope 3 Subversion checkouts and Twisted, even though I actually use less than 10% of the code installed. In fact, my co-workers are about to put such a system into production. The unused code causes no problems that I've detected.
I think one of the main reasons for zpkgtools is indeed to allow a release of part of the repository, such as just the page template engine, but as you say, in the context of Five I've definitely found it a lot easier to just tell people to use the whole of Zope 3, as that is already released by another party. I also think it easier to have the release and repository be very similar.
I'm not convinced myself that this weighs up against the reasons not to invent a zope3 specific packaging system; there are a few drawbacks currently:
* it's unique to Zope 3 and ZODB. Nobody else is using it. Is the Zope 3 project in the business of building package tools, or do we not have enough difficulty on our hands just building Zope 3?
* apparently, as seen on the ZODB list, the packaging format currently used makes life harder for downstream packages such as debian.
* it doesn't tackle some use cases. I'm not sure it could help integration of Zope 3 into Zope 2.8, for instance; a svn:external seemed to make more sense.
I think the first point is the most important worry; we're doing something nobody else is doing in an area outside Zope's core purpose, which is to be a web application service. This stands apart from the quality and merit the tool and its ideas certainly have. I just do not think it a good idea if the Zope project ends up having to maintain *and* explain this indefinitely. I hope, and trust this is the intention, that efforts can be undertaken to make the packaging tool used outside of the Zope project, preferably a Python standard. Of course you still run the significant risk it will never be accepted as such.
Regards,
Martijn _______________________________________________ Zope3-dev mailing list Zope3-dev@zope.org Unsub: http://mail.zope.org/mailman/options/zope3-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
