[Distutils] Beyond wheels 1.0: helping downstream, FHS and more

[Nick Coghlan]

On 16 Apr 2015 14:34, "Paul Moore" <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> By the way. I just did a check through PEPs 426 and 459. Neither one
> currently defines a "postinstall script" metadata item or extension,
> which is interesting given that this discussion started from the
> question of how postinstall actions would be supported. There *have*
> been discussions in the past, and I could have sworn they ended up in
> a PEP somewhere, but maybe I was wrong.

Arbitrary postinstall operations haven't ended up in a PEP yet because *I*
don't like them. Anyone that has experienced "Windows rot" where
uninstallers fail to clean up properly after themselves has seen first hand
the consequences of delegating trust to development teams without the
ability to set any minimum expectations for their quality assurance
processes. (One way of looking at Linux distro packaging policies is to
view them as a code review process applied to Turing complete software
build and installation programs, while container tech like Docker is a way
of isolating apps from the host system)

Trigger based programming is hard at the best of times, and it doesn't get
easier when integrating arbitrary pieces of software written by different
people at different times in different contexts.

On the other hand, I *am* prepared to build in an escape hatch that lets
folks disagree with me, and I'll just not install their software. As far as
*pip* goes, whether or not to add a plugin system to handle additional
metadata extensions would be up to the pip devs.

As a user, my main request if the pip devs decided to add such a plugin
system would be that extension handlers couldn't be implicitly installed as
a dependency of another package. If folks want their installs to "just
work", they shouldn't be marking non-standard metadata extensions as
mandatory :)

Cheers,
Nick.

>
> Paul
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