2009/3/25 Tarek Ziadé <ziade.ta...@gmail.com>: > I can't hear that setuptools has divided the Python community. It has provided > solutions to real problems we had in web development. It's unperfect, > and it has to be > fixed and integrated into Python. But it should not be done outside Python > imho.
It's quite possible that setuptools has solved real issues in the web development area. But it did so at the expense of ease of use for people *not* in that area. I use Python for systems admin scripts, Windows services, and database management. In my experience (and I agree, it's only one, limited, use case) availability of download-and-run bdist_wininst installers for every package I used was the only significant requirement I had for Python package distribution (I remember pre-distutils days, when being able to install a 3rd party package on Windows was a nightmare of build-it-yourself guesswork). Since setuptools came on the scene, I can state with some certainty that many packages which would otherwise have been distributed as bdist_wininst installers, now aren't. In some cases, only source packages are provided (on the basis that easy_install will build what you need). In those cases, I can accept that maybe the developer would not have built Windows installers even before setuptools arrived. But in a significant number of cases - including setuptools itself!!!! - binary, version-specific eggs for Windows are provided, but no bdist_wininst installers. If the developer is willing to build an egg, he could just as easily have built an installer - but he now has to choose - build one or the other, or both. And not everyone chooses the same way. Hence my comment about "dividing the community". From my limited perspective, it's about no longer having a standard Windows binary distribution format used by all, not about some sort of ideological battles. Sorry for being unclear. Paul. _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
