[Python-Dev] windows (was: how to easily consume just the parts of eggs that are good for you)

[Jim Jewett]

> Are the Linux users happy with having a Python
> package manager that ignores RPM/apt? Why
> should Windows users be any happier?

Because, as you noted, the add/remove programs application is severely
limited.

> I've read one too many "Windows is so broken
> that people who use it obviously don't care about
> doing things right" postings this week

I'm honestly not sure that such fine-grained control is the right user
interface, particularly for a non-shared system.

But even if it were, Windows doesn't really have it, and it isn't so
valuable that a solution which works only for python could do much
better than the existing 3rd-party setup tools.



As a windows user, I don't want python packages showing up in the
add/remove programs list, because it won't help me, and will make the
few times I do use that tool even more awkward.

That said, I agree that if python does package management, offering
windows users the choice of using that application is probably a good
idea.  The catch is that "package managers" seem to offer far more
fine-grained power (even without dependency resolution) than windows.
Duplicating this would add lots of complexity just for windows -- and
still might not be all that useful.  I'm already used to looking for
an uninstall.exe in the  directory of anything I can actually
uninstall, and accepting that most things just don't go away cleanly.
As a programmer, this feels wrong, but ... it is probably a good
tradeoff for the time I don't want to spend maintaining things.

If I really wanted a fancy tool that took care of dependencies and
alternate versions, I would be willing to run something
python-specific, or to treat each package as a subcomponent that I
managed through "Change an existing program" applied to python.

But realistically, I don't see such a tool being used often enough to
justify inclusion in the core.

-jJ