[Distutils] How can I create prebuilt distributions?

[David Ascher]

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

> This is basically what ActiveState does with their .ppm format:
> they ship a tarred build directory and then run something like
> "python setup.py install" on the target machine.

Right.  There were quite a few problems with that -- many of the 
setup.py's for example could only work with the full source 
distribution, etc. etc.

> At some point way back in time they wanted to make this code
> available to Python for general usage, but it seems they have
> lost interest (in so many things :-().

Aw, don't be so mean. The PyPPM stuff has two parts -- the server, which 
is written in Perl (we use the PPM server that was developed for Perl a 
long time ago), and the client.  The client isn't pretty code, it's very 
brittle, etc.  I don't think it's a favor to anyone to use it.

I am very interested in doing this still, and I'm hoping that we can 
find some resources to do it "right" at some point.  It's true that we 
have had to focus on some things beyond others.

MAL -- if there are other things that you feel we've dropped the ball 
on, please let me know (preferably off-list -- unless it has to do with 
distutils).  We're still going to keep ActivePython up to date. We're 
kept adding Python features to Komodo, we're working on the next 
generation of Visual Python, we still maintain the ASPN Cookbook, the 
mailing list archives, etc.  PyPPM is what I consider our biggest 
'dropped ball', and while I can explain how that ball got dropped, that 
doesn't really get us here or there.

Cheers,

--da