Tbh, you can not go cater to this type of new users, that start badmouthing the project right out the gate, with the first hint of trouble, either becoming insulting, out right, on the developer list, or doing as you put in your example, posting bad things on their blogs.
If Jason had sent a mail to the developers list stating, "this is the problem I'm having, this is my installation, any idea's?", then we wouldn't have had 10 people defend Django before one came up with "this may be a longshot to be confirmed with further system information, but this seems to be a problem that isn't related to Django itself, but to an unclean installation environment with full or partial, duplicate Django installations." I did respond to him to post his installation base and details about the system he is using, and so have others, but he hasn't responded since, even though there has been quite a decent discussion going about the source of the problem and a possible solution to protect installations against it happening, even though it isn't really Django's fault that package management systems cause the problem, nor is Django in the power to fix "ALL" package management systems that can cause this to happen and most certainly isn't able to protect against this behavior entirely, in case a manual/custom installation is done. Yes, you can make it as easy as as humanly possible for new users, but no, you shouldn't have to go out of your way to cater to users that act like this. 2012/4/13 Daniel Sokolowski <daniel.sokolow...@klinsight.com> > People won’t always read all the docs – it’s a fact – so sooner or > later some other new comer will experience this issue complain, gave up and > worse even blog his/hers negative experience. We do want the newbie > experience to be as painless as possible which means popularity and growth > of the framework - and ultimately continuation of our paying jobs. > > This thread was started by a newbie to the framework, putting aside the > confrontational tone it stated some valid concerns from a beginners > perspective – a very important perspective. > > I’ve been using django for a long time and had no idea about this > ‘distutils’ caveat; I do not understand or know how django installs setup > process works but am up for some kind of a warning/error directly to the > console. > > Thank you for reading my opinion. > > Daniel > *From:* Florian Apolloner <f.apollo...@gmail.com> > *Sent:* Friday, April 13, 2012 2:15 AM > *To:* django-developers@googlegroups.com > *Subject:* Re: extra files in startproject > > > > On Friday, April 13, 2012 6:49:32 AM UTC+2, Alex Ogier wrote: >> >> I have seen setup.py's that use remove_tree as part of a "clean" command >> to allow someone to run "setup.py clean && setup.py install" to obtain >> a pristine distribution idempotently, which I think is a good idea. >> > No, they should work on fixing distutils instead of creating solutions > which probably could break even worse. > > >> The alternative is to have everyone remember to "rm -rf" their >> site-packages django every time they run setup.py install which is a >> bit unsavory in my opinion. >> > Or just tell them to use either pip even for development installs or just > set their PYTHONPATH. > > >> If someone has managed to get extra files in their site-packages, >> because at any point they followed a tutorial on how to build from >> source, then their django installation is basically caput until they >> manually "rm -rf" a deep library path. One option is to document this >> and explain what to do >> > You made me lol, that approach is documented in the install guide: > https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/install/#remove-any-old-versions-of-django-- > If people would actually read the docs this issue wouldn't exist. FWIW > the docs also mention to symlink a dev checkout and don't tell you to run > setup.py > > >> That would mean listing somewhere the files from >> >> django/conf/project_template/ that should be included, which isn't >> very DRY, but is the only 100% solution I think. >> >> Given that the documentation shows how to do it properly I don't see any > point. Especially since this problem isn't related to the project_template > alone -- that's just where it's most visible. > > > >> So, that should give you some idea of the perils of not cleaning your >> output directories (or in this case, input directory). >> > We are aware of those, and fwiw: If you use git and switch branches it's > up to you to know how python works and how git clean works, or do you want > to suggest that django should rm al pyc files on startup?! > > >> My recommendation is to make "setup.py clean" do everything possible >> to ensure idempotent installation across any version, document that, >> and call it a day. >> > What's wrong with the current documented approach? (Aside from the fact > that people don't read it, but then again they won't read the setup.py > clean either). > > Regards, > Florian > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-developers/-/SbdWA7plRx4J. > To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. 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