[Python-Dev] Status of packaging in 3.3

[Dag Sverre Seljebotn]

On 06/23/2012 12:37 PM, Lennart Regebro wrote:
> Why do I get the feeling that most people who hate distutils and want
> to replace it, has transferred those feelings to distutils2/packaging,
> mainly because of the name?
>
> In the end, I think this discussion is very similar to all previous
> packaging/building/installing discussions: There is a lot of emotions,
> and a lot of willingness to declare that "X sucks" but very little
> concrete explanation of *why* X sucks and why it can't be fixed.

I think David has been pretty concrete in a lot of his criticism too 
(though he has refrained from repeating himself too much in this 
thread). Some of the criticism is spelled out here:

http://bento.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html

This blog post is even more concrete (but perhaps outdated?):

http://cournape.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/271/

As for me, I believe I've been rather blunt and direct in my criticism 
in this thread: It's been said by Tarek that distutils2 authors that 
they don't know anything about compilers. Therefore it's almost 
unconceivable to me that much good can come from distutils2 *for my 
needs*. Even if packaging and building isn't the same, the two issues do 
tangle at a fundamental level, *and* most existing solutions already out 
there (RPM, MSI..) distribute compiled software and therefore one needs 
a solid understanding of build processes to also understand these tools 
fully and draw on their experiences and avoid reinventing the wheel.

Somebody with a deep understanding of 3-4 existing build systems and 
long experience in cross-platform builds and cross-architecture builds 
would need to be on board for me to take it seriously (even the 
packaging parts). As per Tarek's comments, I'm therefore pessimistic 
about the distutils2 efforts.

(You can always tell me that I shouldn't criticise unless I'm willing to 
join and do something about it. That's fair. I'm just saying that my 
unwillingness to cheer for distutils2 is NOT based on the name only!)

Dag