[Distutils] Setuptools: omit namespace package directories?

[Jim Fulton]

On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:05 AM, Thomas Lotze wrote:

> Hi,
>
> when using namespace packages, the corresponding package  
> directories and
> __init__.py files must physically exist in the source tree, even  
> though
> they can't, by definition of a namespace package, contain anything  
> other
> than subordinate directories and a fixed stanza of Python code, resp.
>
> This gets annoying, especially when using nested namespaces. For  
> example,
> when writing a buildout recipe, the cleanest thing is to use several
> namespaces, like zc.recipe.egg does.

I don't agree that this is cleanest.  I made a mistake by introducing  
the recipe namespace.  New recipes I write won't use this.  "Flat is  
better than nested."  Also, for smaller projects, I'm avoiding   
intermediate src directories to avoid the annoying nesting.  (I'm a  
little uneasy about this, but can't see a serious downside other than  
setup being importable in develop mode.)


> However, you end up jumping through
> essentially empty directories all the time while working on the  
> source.

Yup

> There's evidence that this problem is a real one: buildout recipes
> registered with PyPI tend to omit the "recipe" part at the expense of
> namespace hygiene and PEP 8 compliance, for example gocept.download or
> buildout_script.

IMO, the only needed hygiene is the top-level namespace.  (Maybe a  
huge organization would need sub namespaces, but we don't.)

> Since there's basically not information in those boilerplate  
> directories
> and __init__.py files that couldn't be inferred from a keyword  
> parameter
> to setup(), would it be a sensible feature request that setuptools do
> without the physical namespace directories in the future?

I would love to see this.  I haven't been able to think of a good way  
to do it reliably, especially considering the important use case of  
develop eggs, which want to run directly from a checkout.

Again, for smaller project, the pain can be mitigated by skipping the  
src directory and avoiding nested namespaces.

Jim

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