[Python-Dev] setuptools in 2.5.

[Fredrik Lundh]

Anthony Baxter wrote:

> - Multiple installs of different versions of the same package,
> including per-user installs.

yeah, but where is the documentation on how this works ?  phillip points
to a 30-page API description, which says absolutely nothing whatsoever
about the files I'm going to find on my machine after doing a setuptools-
based installation, how those files are used, and what I can do with them
myself.

maybe it's nice to have a big abstraction with a dozen classes and inter-
faces, but if not even the developer can describe the concrete things be-
neath the abstractions, something's not entirely right.  especially when the
developer don't even seem to understand why anyone would care, when
he's already written all the code.

:::

and yes, for the record, setuptools has already created one support mess
for me, where the "gotta protect the average users from how this really
works" approach resulted in many average users not being able to get
things to work at all, even after trying out a magic workaround that
someone provided (along the lines of "python -msomething --something
walla walla/" - note the trailing slash, will do something else without it).

and I wasn't even using setuptools myself.  not that the users cared
about that; setuptools told them that my stuff didn't work, and couldn't
be installed, so of course they contacted me.

:::

but if this is so obvious, maybe someone could whip up a brief overview
document, that support volunteers like myself can refer to when people
get stuck ?  (preferrably someone who isn't Phillip, to prove that some-
one else actually understands all the relevant details).  if not a PEP, at
least a FAQ entry ?

pointing people to a couple of hundred pages of API and option listings
won't really work.  and "look in the distutils archives" won't work either.

</F>