[Doc-SIG] Request for Eyeballs: Python Project Howto

[Paul Moore]

2009/9/25 John Kleint <jkleint at gmail.com>:
> I'm writing an introduction to releasing open-source Python projects.
> Having recently gone through it for the first time myself, I was
> amazed at how far and wide I had to range to pull together all the
> information that goes into making a good Python package.  So I thought
> I'd write it up and share:
>
> http://infinitemonkeycorps.net/docs/pph/
>
> It's tentatively called the "Python Project Howto," and it's aimed at
> people who, though not necessarily new to Python, may be new to
> packaging and possibly open source.  It tries to be succinct and
> practical, demonstrating by example.  It covers choosing project
> hosting, setting up version control (Subversion basics), code quality
> (Pylint) and style (PEP 8), documentation (reStructuredText, Sphinx),
> unit testing (doctest and unittest), licensing, packaging (distutils),
> and release (PyPI).
>
> One thing I don't want it to be is an exhaustive list of all the
> possibilities for each of those areas.  For instance, I cover
> reStructuredText and Sphinx, but not epydoc; distutils but not
> setuptools.  I've tried to pick the simplest, most common among
> several options, and sometimes provided a link to others (pip, nose).
> I'm trying to Keep It Simple for people just dipping their toes into
> the Python ecosystem.  I'd really like to know what people think; it
> would be great to get some feedback on it.  Thanks!

Please, when describing how to build the uploadable packages, as well
as setup.py sdist, add in a recommendation to build and upload
setup.py bdist_wininst.

Not all users (want to) use easy_install, and for those on Windows who
don't, the provision of a Windows installer is a very useful
convenience. It's not difficult, for pure Python packages (AFAIK,
bdist_wininst is platform independent). If you're packaging up a C
extension, you want to make sure it builds on Windows in any case, of
course (:-)) so building an installer is no extra burden, and hugely
helps your Windows users.

I've fairly often not bothered trying out packages just because they
don't provide a windows installer. Call me lazy, but even so... :-)

Paul.