[Distutils] Platform naming standardization

[David Lyon]

On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:36:46 +0100, "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> wrote:

>>>>>>> Instead, the version string should include the details of
>>>>>>> all included builds, ie. 'x86', 'x64', 'ppc', 'ppc64'.

>> Hashing out the details on what combinations of architectures are valid
>> during installation will be fun though ;-). That is, if my python says
>> its machine is "i386,x86_64" is it then acceptable to install an "i386"
>> binary, an "i386,x86_64" binary, and "i386,ppc, x86_64" binary?
> 
> The point is that even though your Python binary may say it's
> "i386,x86_64", the version you run your application with
> will either be "i386" or "x86_64" (depending on the OS environment
> settings).

That's right.

> Now let's say you're running the "i386" version. As long as all
> installed components provide the "i386" part you should be fine.
> In your example all components provide the "i386" part, so all
> of them can be installed.

The main point here though is being able to trigger the correct
build for non-standard configuration, no matter what the
platform. We're having the same issue on Windows as it
is running the same processors.

> In a few years, we'll probably only see "x86_64" binaries for
> Mac OS, but until then, package installers will have to
> be able to work out the problem of finding installable
> distribution files among the available ones.

We'll see what if anything gets changed/fixed.

I'm concerned about the excessive use of code-freeze-spray
being used in 2010. That's where you take 5-10 year old
code and just freeze it into place.

I'd really like to see distutils create packages and run
in a browser window. That's my wish to santa. 

Having a 64-bit processor and a 10 year old command line
interface on distutils, seems somewhat wrong in this
millenia.

There really is so much to do.. we could make a really
fresh start with Python 3 and make it really different
and better than Python 2.x

I'd love to see a plan or a roadmap for packaging for 2010..

David