[Pythonmac-SIG] Working with the PPM

[Kevin Ollivier]

On Wednesday, March 12, 2003, at 05:06  AM, Jack Jansen wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003, at 23:01 Europe/Amsterdam, Kevin Ollivier 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've gotten a chance to work with the Python Package Manager, and 
>> thought I'd post my comments/experiences here.
>
> Thanks!! This is only the second report I got, so I'd really want to 
> press the point again to the rest of the
> people on the list: please try the PackageManager, and send feedback!
>>
>> When I ran the PPM, I tried to install the Python Imaging Library. 
>> The install seems to have gone correctly (all the files are there), 
>> but the program froze up and I had to perform a "force quit". PPM 
>> showed the package as installed when I restarted it.
>
> I haven't seen anything like this. Could you try to repeat it? 
> Repeating should be easy: remove the stuff in site-packages
> and try again. Maybe try with Verbose "on" this time. If it fails 
> again on the second try I'd like some more information:
> - Which Python (2.3a2 or current CVS)
> - Which MacOS version
> - Did you use the standalone PackageManager or the one in the IDE?
>
> I did just notice that there's a bug with the PIL setup script if you 
> have Tk installed, if this causes your problem too the Verbose should 
> make that clear. And I have to do something about this fact not being 
> communicated to the end user if verbose is off.

Oddly enough, I can't reproduce this. After deleting and re-installing, 
both with and without the verbose options, it works fine. I've 
installed most of the other packages on the list without problems as 
well. If I can figure out what I did, I'll let you know. ^_^; BTW, I 
don't have Tkinter installed.

Related to this, is it possible to move the install scripts to a 
separate thread? WIth or without the verbose option, I get the spinning 
beachball over the main window during the entire install. (i.e. No 
status updates, etc.) Most of the modules are pretty small, but some of 
the bigger ones may make it look like the app is frozen.

>
>> 1. Will it really install the Apple Dev Tools if you don't have 
>> them??? This would really, really, rock. =) Just van Rossum was 
>> discussing the use of otool for bundlebuilder.py, but otool only 
>> comes with the ADT, so having the ability to install prereq apps in 
>> general would be very cool.
>
> Try it:-)
>
> The answer is: no, PackageManager will not install it for you, but it 
> will give you some pointers on how to get it.
> The intention is that PackageManager does one thing well, in stead of 
> being a be-all-end-all solution.

This in itself is very helpful. Being able to list ADT (or other system 
libraries) as a prereq will let users know what they need to do to get 
everything going.

>> 2. Where's the database? =) I'm curious to see how it is set up, but 
>> sniffing through the PPM code I don't see any filename listed. I 
>> could be missing something, but it seems to just magically know where 
>> to load the file from.
>
> Look in Lib/plat-mac/pimp.py, DEFAULT_PIMPDATABASE. The URL for the 
> database is constructed from a static part plus distutils-style 
> platform name.

Ah, so it is on the web! =) Thanks, I'll take a look at the format!

>> 3. Is this compatible with the new "Python Package Index" on the 
>> Python web site? I know these are both very new initiatives, so I was 
>> just wondering. =)
>
> They are complementary. After 2.3 is out I'm going to do a PEP on an 
> install manager for Python, and I'll use the
> experience with pimp as input for that.
>
>> 4. What's the timeframe for a 2.3 Python final release, and how much 
>> further were you hoping/planning on going with it before then?
>
> I assume 2.3 final is going to happen some time this summer. I'm not 
> planning to do much with pimp before that time, except for fixing 
> bugs. I do want to have a fairly generous set of packages available by 
> the time 2.3 comes out, though.

I'll see about what it would take to add wxPython, and probably pyXML 
as well. These are the packages I'm familiar with installing on 
MacPython.

Two small suggestions:

1. Is it possible to shrink the space used for the "package installed" 
row (the yes/no row)? It seems the fields are given equal percentages 
of the screen space.

2. I wasn't really sure about what the Recursive and Force options did 
at first. What do you think about changing the names to "Install 
Dependencies" and "Overwrite"?

Thanks,

Kevin