understanding why there is no setup.py uninstall

[Ben Finney]

<c.buhtz at posteo.jp> writes:

> I want to understand the design concept behind it.
> Why isn't there no uninstall routine implemented?

What form of answer are you looking for?

Will you be disappointed if the answer entails (as I fear it must)
“because no-one put in the sustained effort to make it work”?

If you merely want to know the sequence of events that led to the
situation, you'll need to go digging through the history of Distutils.

If, on the other hand, you are feeling wronged and want someone to take
responsibility and justify their actions:

> For me as a user and admin it feels quite dirty when installing
> something with the setup.py but then not being able to remove it clean
> like I would do it with packages of my system-package-manager (e.g.
> with apt-get on a debianized system).

… then I think you'll find it more productive to realise we *do* have a
better system now.

Part of the better system is that we have the Python Packaging Authority
<URL:http://pypa.io/> which didn't exist when Distutils was designed.
Read the documents there and I hope you'll be glad at the improvement!

More specifically, an important part of the better system is that we now
have Pip <URL:https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip/>, which is the PyPA
recommended tool for end-users to install *and* uninstall Python packages.

Hopefully by the time you're done with that, you won't need anyone to
justify their actions to you any more :-)

-- 
 \          “I used to be an airline pilot. I got fired because I kept |
  `\       locking the keys in the plane. They caught me on an 80 foot |
_o__)                    stepladder with a coathanger.” —Steven Wright |
Ben Finney