[Python-Dev] Re: [Distutils] Questions about distutils strategy

[Gordon McMillan]

Guido wrote:

> [Great analysis, Tim!]
> 
> > 4) The audience is Python end-users "in general", and the
> > product is pure Python.  I think this is the most important one
> > for Distutils to address, and compilation isn't a part of it. 
> > So far, though, what Gordon is doing seems more appropriate
> > than what Distutils has been up to.  I hope his work gets
> > folded into this.
> 
> I'm not sure what stuff by which Gordon you're referring to.  I
> am only familiar with his installer, which I thought is win32
> only (but I may be mistaken) and is an installer for a whole
> application, not just a bunch of modules.  Please correct me if
> I'm wrong.

It needed a name. I hate the word "Installer", but it expresses 
in one word the most common use of my stuff.

I'll be releasing a beta for Linux real soon. Only some of the 
tricks are Windows only (such as self-extracting executables, 
which is only culturally appropriate on Windows, anyway).

But more importantly it's not just for installing. The Python I 
use (interactively) on my wife's machine is 1 directory with 
about 6 files in it. On my Linux box I've been using the std lib 
in a .pyz for about a month now. Someone distributing a pure 
Python package could instead ship 3 files (imputil.py, 
archive.py and <package>.pyz) with the "install" consisting of 
adding one line to site.py in the user's perfectly normal Python 
installation.

And yeah, I solved the "manifest" problem, too. Mine predates 
Distutils, so don't accuse me of duplicate effort, (I pointed 
them to it a couple times). It uses ConfigParser and a config 
file, so it allows finer control.

While .pyz's are completely cross-platform, I have yet to work 
out endianness issues in the other archive I use (which should 
probably be zip format - it can hold anything). And at the 
"Installer" end, I have yet to work out how things should work 
on non-ELF/COFF platforms (where I can't append the archive 
to the executable). But there aren't any technical issues 
involved; just lack of time.

So no, it's not just for Windows; and no, it's not just for 
creating standalones (though that's what almost everyone 
uses it for).

- Gordon