[Distutils] [Catalog-sig] packaging terminology confusion

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn]

On Saturday, 2010-01-09, at 11:47 , Brad Allen wrote:

> Now I understand that your 'project' concept probably corresponds  
> to an entry in PyPI which is associated with multiple releases

Yep.  Or actually the "project" is the thing that a few hackers like  
to spend their time on.  It is the thing that evolves over time,  
endures forks and personnel changes, etc.  The page on PyPI is best  
understood as being the web page on PyPI which is here to inform you  
about the state of the project.

I tell people at hacker meetups that I work on the Tahoe-LAFS  
project.  They nod their heads.  I'm going to continue saying that,  
and they are going to continue nodding their heads, regardless of  
what we on this mailing list decide.

> When you have a release ready, what do you do with it? You  
> 'package' it, of course. You don't 'project' it, and you don't  
> 'parcel' it. What is the result of the 'packaging' activity? It's a  
> 'package' of course.

Bingo!  And, this is true regardless of whether you're working on a  
project written in Python or in another language or in a combination  
of languages.

> Maybe it's just wrong to call the __init__.py directories  
> 'packages', because they are really just a piece of what is getting  
> packaged.

Bingo!  A "package" is something that you deliver to someone else and  
they use it.  You don't deliver __init__.py directories to people.   
__init__.py directories are not packages.

Regards,

Zooko