-1 for install/uninstall scripts in Distutils
I'd argue that the scope of Distutils is already wide enough that it
doesn't need to be extended to also be a "package manager" -- even if
it's a really simple one.
If a install/uninstall tool does go into Python, I'd rather see it as
something like 'simplepackageinstaller.install' instead of
'Distutils.scripts.install'. This would also make it more clear that
this tool is simply working with the standard packaging formats and
tools, and doesn't muddy the format/implementation as much as if it's
just another part of Distutils.
But then I don't think Python should have a built-in installer or
package manager. There are excellent tools already available
(Buildout, pip, dpkg, RPM), it would be better if we guided people to
these tools and let them pick the right one for their installation use
case.
If there was a installer, I'm assuming it'd be quite a simple one -
e.g. installs single-version into site-packages. This caters to well
to casual user -- they can just run a "standard" command out-of-the-
box and take-off running with a distribution, but it also teaches them
bad habits (e.g. that you want to be commonly installing into site-
packages or that you want to develop your own code without properly
expressing it's dependencies). When they want to use better
development practices, they'll have to switch to a "non-standard"
tools to do "non-standard" installations.
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