[Distutils] Python people want CPAN and how the latter came about

[ssteinerX@gmail.com]

On Dec 24, 2009, at 10:16 AM, Lennart Regebro wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 15:46, ssteinerX at gmail.com <ssteinerx at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't think it's strange to be concerned that one of the SDPTJLCOB options, and the one that you used as your example, is going to go away.
> 
> Why? Pip does the same thing. They are commands. And it's not likely
> to go away anytime soon, what probably happens is that people will use
> pip more and more until pretty much noone uses easy_install. It
> completely and utterly fails me to see why this would be anything to
> worry about.

I guess what I mean is that I'd like to make sure that while moving to pip, that easy_install, as a command name, not as an implementation, gets brought along in the same way that Distribute has brought along setuptools compatibility.  IOW in such a way that the improvements in the new code are available without breaking any existing configurations/scripts/workflows etc.

>> If pip is going to be the SDPTJLCOB of the future, with an facade that substitutes for easy_install in the same way that Distribute does for setuptools then great, that's progress!
> 
> It'll have an easy_install facade if someone needs it badly enough to write one. But I can't imagine why they would.

I imagine it would be useful to have a facade because easy_install is familiar and ubiquitous and shouldn't be left rotting in place as pip takes over the world and becomes the SDPTJLCOB any more than Distribute left the rest of setuptools exposed to cause problems once Distribute was installed.

S