[Python-Dev] "setuptools has divided the Python community"

[Tarek Ziadé]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:
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> Barry Warsaw wrote:
>> On Mar 25, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote:
>>
>>> For case one, where I want to install additional functionality into my
>>> system Python interpreter "forever", it would be great to have my
>>> system
>>> manage this.
>>
>> In fact, I think it /has/ to.  I'll go further and say that I'm very
>> wary of using easy_install and the like to install non-distro provided
>> packages into the system Python.  Many Linux distros require a
>> functioning system Python to operate and the distros (should) take
>> great care to make sure that if you install package X for application
>> Y, you won't break essential system service Z.  Once you start
>> installing your own stuff in the system Python's site-packages, you
>> break the warranty.
>
> Exactly:  I never use easy_isntall to put packages into the system
> python.  in fact, I only use it inside a virtalenv-generated isolated
> environment.

But how each application use 'Python the interpreter' ?

application =  an interpreter + a list of paths + a script to run your
application.

Isolating everything with virtualenv or zc.buildout is a way to go,
but what is really important is not where each package you use is
located but how
Python see and load them.

So if we, for once, forget about the central site-packages and define some
kind of configuration process that is run when every script is launched
to decide what packages should be loaded, we could seperate
 "python the interpreter" from "python the pile of packages"

If some kind of API + configuration file could adress this need, maybe
things could be simpler. You wouldn't fight against a central site-packages
or a per-user site-packages. You would have to explicitely provide it

Tarek
-- 
Tarek Ziadé | Association AfPy | www.afpy.org
Blog FR | http://programmation-python.org
Blog EN | http://tarekziade.wordpress.com/