[Distutils] Entry points: specifying and caching

[Nick Coghlan]

On 20 October 2017 at 22:10, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:

> If I could guess, I’d say it hasn’t changed in years because setuptools
> has had bigger things to work on and not enough time to do it in.


Then you'd be wrong - it hasn't changed in years because it's a sensible,
simple solution to the problem of declaring integration points between
independently distributed pieces of software that allows the installed
integration points to be listed *without* importing the software providing
them (unlike most import based plugin systems).

And yes, I know you're attempting to claim that "declaring integration
points between independently distributed pieces of software" isn't
something that's a packaging ecosystem level to concern.

It is an ecosystem level concern, but we haven't had to worry about it
previously, because entry points haven't had problems to be fixed the way
that other aspects of setuptools have (lack of uninstall support in
easy_install, lack of filesystem layout metadata in eggs, ordering quirks
in the versioning scheme). For entry points, by contrast, the only missing
piece is explicit documentation of the file format used in distribution
archives and the installation database.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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