[Distutils] [Python-Dev] distlib updated with resources API

[David Cournapeau]

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 5:07 PM, Donald Stufft <donald.stufft at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 8:59 AM, David Cournapeau wrote:
>
> Note that all this work has already been done in Bento.
>
> I understand the appeal of using an existing format like yaml, but it
> is not clear to me how one can handle conditional with it, and I think
> you want to handle conditionals in there (for platform-dependent
> dependencies).
>
> Bento also has a command to convert setup.py-based projects to bento
> internal format, adapting it to use another format should not be too
> difficult.
>
> David
>
> Instead of conditionals the existing ideas use an environment marker,
> so instead of (pseudo format, I just woke up):
>
>      if python_version < 2.6:
>         require: simplejson
>
> You would do:
>     require: simplejson; python_version < 2.6

Right, in that case, it would work, but in my experience, it is
important to be able to apply conditionals to more than just
requirements (packages definition and so on).

I am not suggesting something very complicated (we don't want to
re-create a language), but more something like cabal (see conditionals
in http://www.haskell.org/cabal/users-guide/developing-packages.html#package-descriptions),
or even RPM (http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-inside-conditionals.html).
This has the advantage of using something that has already been
battle-tested for several years.

But again, syntax is a really minor point, and what matters the most
are the features. I was not able to express what I wanted with yaml
for bento, but would be more than happy to scrap the custom format if
someone manages to.

David