[Python-ideas] Wheels For ...

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, Sep 06, 2015 at 07:33:29PM +0200, Sven R. Kunze wrote:

> Why do developers need to build their distribution themselves?
> 
> I had not real answer to him, but pondering a while over it, I found it 
> really insightful. Viewing this from a different angle, packaging your 
> own distribution is actually a waste of time. It is a tedious, 
> error-prone task involving no creativity whatsoever. Developers on the 
> other hand are actually people with very little time and a lot of 
> creativity at hand which should spend better. The logical conclusion 
> would be that PyPI should build wheels for the developers for every 
> python/platform combination necessary.

Over on the python-list mailing list, Ned Batchelder asked a question. I 
haven't seen an answer there, and as far as I know he isn't subscribed 
here, so I'll take the liberty of copying his question here:

Ned says:

"As a developer of a Python package, I don't see how this would be 
better. The developer would still have to get their software into some 
kind of uniform configuration, so the central authority could package 
it.  You've moved the problem from, "everyone has to make wheels" to 
"everyone has to make a tree that's structured properly."  But if we can 
do the second thing, the first thing is really easy.

Maybe I've misunderstood?"


-- 
Steve