[Distutils] PEP 390 - new format from setup.cfg

[Chris Withers]

Ian Bicking wrote:
>   long_desc = open(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'docs',
> 'index.txt')).read()
>   long_desc = long_desc.split('..contents::', 1)[1].strip()
>   setup(..., long_description=long_desc)

Yes, and yet everytime I ask for the ability specify long description as 
a file path relative to the pacakge, I get shouted at ;-)

> (Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure what we're accomplishing
> with this declarative metadata; "setup.py --name" is too minimal, but
> some new "setup.py metadata" command that dumps everything isn't hard
> to imagine; what are the *real* advantages of this new proposal?  If I
> have to use a build process to build my setup.cfg, then absolutely
> nothing will be accomplished.  And is the complexity all just because
> sometimes people need to use version-specific requirements?)

To wind right back, the original requirement for static metadata was so 
that it could be published on PyPI and package management tools could 
parse requirements without having to download the package and execute an 
untrusted .py file.

Chris

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