[Distutils] A Python Packaging Tutorial

[Wolodja Wentland]

On Sat, Nov 07, 2009 at 14:44 +0100, Tarek Ziadé wrote:
> As Ian suggested, and since others thinks its a good idea, I suggest
> that we start writing a "python packaging guide" using
> reStructuredText and DVCS, explaining how to handle packaging today.
> (with *all* existing tools)

I think this is a great idea, but what is meant by "today" ? Do you
intend to describe packaging with the 0.6 or 0.7 branch of Distribute?

> When it's done, we could add it in python's Doc/ with the help of Georg.

This is indeed of uttermost importance as the natural way to start
packaging today is to read the "Distribute Python Modules" document in
the Python documentation.

One problem I was wasting my time on was trying to get the "Requires" and
"Provides" arguments to *distutils* setup right, just to learn that
these are not used at all and all the effort was wasted. Things like
this should not happen. I know the reasons for that now, but it was
confusing nonetheless.

> I think Pauli provided a good starting list of what is not obvious for
> a new comer.

As a new comer I might want to add some points:

1. Distribute 0.6 / 0.7

* Should I use Distribute 0.6 features in my software right now? 

I have the feeling that using Distribute 0.6 and learning the setuptools
API is not a wise decision right now, given all the changes that are
happening.

* Will there be an upgrade path?

2. Data Files

It looks like this *important* part of packaging software is neglected
in the ongoing discussion and development. What are the plans regarding
packaging data files? pkgutil.get_data() is absolutely useless for
retrieving data files IMHO. The alternative (subclassing distutil
commands) should *not* be the *standard* way to handle this.

kind regards and thanks for all the work!

    Wolodja
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