Bundling Distribute

[Ram Rachum]

Hello,

I would like to bundle Distribute with my project
so that I could use it without making my users
install it. (I like to keep things as simple as
possible for my users.)

Is it possible? I thought of just copying the
"setuptools" folder from the source distribution
into a package in my project, so instead of doing
`from setuptools import setup`, I would do
`from third_party.setuptools import setup`.

Does it make sense? Will it work? Anything else I
should keep in mind?

Thanks,
Ram.

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[Tarek Ziadé]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would like to bundle Distribute with my project
> so that I could use it without making my users
> install it. (I like to keep things as simple as
> possible for my users.)
>
> Is it possible? I thought of just copying the
> "setuptools" folder from the source distribution
> into a package in my project, so instead of doing
> `from setuptools import setup`, I would do
> `from third_party.setuptools import setup`.
>
> Does it make sense? Will it work? Anything else I
> should keep in mind?

Hello,

It is possible to bundle, but the best strategy depends on what you are
doing in your project with Distribute. e.g. using it to provide
specific options in your setup.py, or using its
APIs, like what pkg_resources provides to query entry points for example.

Tarek
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[Ram Rachum]

Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek <at> gmail.com> writes:

>
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Ram Rachum <cool-rr <at> cool-rr.com> wrote:
> > <Pruned>
> > Does it make sense? Will it work? Anything else I
> > should keep in mind?
>
> Hello,
>
> It is possible to bundle, but the best strategy depends on what you are
> doing in your project with Distribute. e.g. using it to provide
> specific options in your setup.py, or using its
> APIs, like what pkg_resources provides to query entry points for example.
>
> Tarek
> _______________________________________________
> Distutils-SIG maillist  -  Distutils-SIG <at> python.org
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>
>

I'll be using it my setup.py, and I've also heard about pkg_resources and I'll
want to use that. And maybe there will be more interesting things in Distribute
that I'll want to use. What do you suggest I should do?

Ram.








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[Lennart Regebro-2]

2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...>:
> I'll be using it my setup.py, and I've also heard about pkg_resources and I'll
> want to use that. And maybe there will be more interesting things in Distribute
> that I'll want to use. What do you suggest I should do?

In that case you need it installed, and then your users should install it.

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[Tarek Ziadé]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...> wrote:
[cut]
>
> I'll be using it my setup.py, and I've also heard about pkg_resources and I'll
> want to use that. And maybe there will be more interesting things in Distribute
> that I'll want to use. What do you suggest I should do?

There's a trick to use it without installing it :

- add the distribute_setup.py script besides your setup.py script
- call the use_setuptools API in setup.py, so distribute gets
downloaded then added in the path
  (see the documentation for that)

Although I think the best practice is to ask your users to install
Distribute explicitely, because
using Distribute under the hood implies that everytime someone runs
your setup.py script,
it will behave specifically. (and not like Distutils is supposed to behave)
For example, when "install" is called, it will install the
distribution following its own standard.

We are pushing in favor of an unified installation standard for all
tools (read PEP 376), and until this goal is
reached, I am now also suggesting people not to use the use_setuptools
trick, so the end-user knows what
is going on.

Tarek
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[Ram Rachum]

Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek <at> gmail.com> writes:

> There's a trick to use it without installing it :
>
> - add the distribute_setup.py script besides your setup.py script
> - call the use_setuptools API in setup.py, so distribute gets
> downloaded then added in the path
>   (see the documentation for that)
>
> Although I think the best practice is to ask your users to install
> Distribute explicitely,

I'm against the online-install thing. I guess I'll tell my users to install
Distribute, which I guess is not too bad since I have to tell that only to the
users who install from source and not from binaries. Which leads me to my next
point: When creating a binary with Distribute, will it install Distribute
automatically on the user's computer? I would like it to.

Ram.

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[Lennart Regebro-2]

2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...>:
> Which leads me to my next
> point: When creating a binary with Distribute, will it install Distribute
> automatically on the user's computer?

1. No.
2. You should only create binary releases if your module contains
C-code and then only for Windows.

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[Tarek Ziadé]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 11:32 PM, Lennart Regebro <regebro@...> wrote:
> 2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...>:
>> Which leads me to my next
>> point: When creating a binary with Distribute, will it install Distribute
>> automatically on the user's computer?
>
> 1. No.
> 2. You should only create binary releases if your module contains
> C-code and then only for Windows.

3. If your project is for a specific target system that is not win32,
another option is
    to re-package your distribution into a platform-specific binary
distribution, like a .deb file
    or a .rpm file.

Regards
Tarek
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[Ram Rachum]

Lennart Regebro <regebro <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 2. You should only create binary releases if your module contains
> C-code and then only for Windows.
>

Why only if there's C code? I personally find it more convenient to install
binaries than from source.

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[Lennart Regebro-2]

2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...>:
> Why only if there's C code?

Because in general you want to compile the code on the system when
it's Linux or osx etc. It works better, and you don't have to provide
both 32bit and 64 bit versions and yadayada.

> I personally find it more convenient to install binaries than from source.

Why?

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[Sridhar Ratnakumar-2]

On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:50:58 -0800, Lennart Regebro <regebro@...>  
wrote:

>> I personally find it more convenient to install binaries than from  
>> source.
> Why?

1. Not having to deal build errors (due to missing libs or corrupt lib  
installations)
2. Not having to have a compiler suite installed (VS, xcode)
3. Installing binaries take less time than for source (which you have to  
compile)
4. Support for binary repositories (eg: pypm.activestate.com) where you  
can put custom builds (eg: launchpad repos)

Point (1) and (2) are very important for Windows.

-srid
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[Ram Rachum]

Lennart Regebro <regebro <at> gmail.com> writes:

>
> 2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr <at> cool-rr.com>:
> > Why only if there's C code?
>
> Because in general you want to compile the code on the system when
> it's Linux or osx etc. It works better, and you don't have to provide
> both 32bit and 64 bit versions and yadayada.
>
> > I personally find it more convenient to install binaries than from source.
>
> Why?
>

Because it requires less work on the user's side.

Anyway, I guess I'll supply both binaries and code, so people will install what
they want.


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[Ram Rachum]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:39 AM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek@...> wrote:

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 11:32 PM, Lennart Regebro <regebro@...> wrote:
> 2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr@...>:
>> Which leads me to my next
>> point: When creating a binary with Distribute, will it install Distribute
>> automatically on the user's computer?
>
> 1. No.
> 2. You should only create binary releases if your module contains
> C-code and then only for Windows.

3. If your project is for a specific target system that is not win32,
another option is
   to re-package your distribution into a platform-specific binary
distribution, like a .deb file
   or a .rpm file.

Regards
Tarek

I'm a bit lost. Is it possible in any way to have Distribute automatically installed when installing my program, without requiring an internet connection?

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[Lennart Regebro-2]

2009/11/5 Sridhar Ratnakumar <sridharr@...>:
> 1. Not having to deal build errors (due to missing libs or corrupt lib
> installations)

Then you need to compile the libs statically, and then you open up
another can of worms with incompatibilities there.

> 2. Not having to have a compiler suite installed (VS, xcode)

If you install a python library, you have those installed. (Except on Windows).

> 3. Installing binaries take less time than for source (which you have to
> compile)

Which is only relevant of you have massive amounts of C-code. Even big
projects take 15 seconds instead if 3 seconds. Hardly a big problem.

> 4. Support for binary repositories (eg: pypm.activestate.com) where you can
> put custom builds (eg: launchpad repos)

This I don't understand.

> Point (1) and (2) are very important for Windows.

Yes. Which is why I explicitly said that you shouldn't distribute
binaries, except for Windows.

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[Tarek Ziadé]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:02 AM, cool-RR <cool-rr@...> wrote:
>
> I'm a bit lost. Is it possible in any way to have Distribute automatically
> installed when installing my program, without requiring an internet
> connection?

You need an internet connection unless you provide an archive of
distribute alongside
the distribute_setup.py script in your archive. In that case, it will
use it rather than getting
it at PyPI,

So yes, there is a way to get it installed with your distribution.
That's what the next virtualenv release
does in fact.

zc.buildout has a similar mechanism with its eggs folder. As a matter
of fact, some people build
their buildout instance and just zip it with all included
(pre-downloaded) dependencies. Then you can just unzip it
and use it with no internet connection on a similar target system.
That's a "big" binary distribution :)

Regards,
Tarek
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[P.J. Eby]

At 11:00 PM 11/5/2009 +0000, Ram Rachum wrote:

>Lennart Regebro <regebro <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
> >
> > 2009/11/5 Ram Rachum <cool-rr <at> cool-rr.com>:
> > > Why only if there's C code?
> >
> > Because in general you want to compile the code on the system when
> > it's Linux or osx etc. It works better, and you don't have to provide
> > both 32bit and 64 bit versions and yadayada.
> >
> > > I personally find it more convenient to install binaries than
> from source.
> >
> > Why?
> >
>
>Because it requires less work on the user's side.

Not for people using easy_install or its derivatives (like pip and
buildout).  easy_install-based tools work as easily with source as binaries.

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[Lennart Regebro-2]

2009/11/6 P.J. Eby <pje@...>:
> Not for people using easy_install or its derivatives (like pip and
> buildout).  easy_install-based tools work as easily with source as binaries.

Right. And untaring and running setup.py install is not exactly a
massive amount of work either. :)

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[Ben Finney-10]

Lennart Regebro <regebro@...> writes:

> 2009/11/6 P.J. Eby <pje@...>:
> > Not for people using easy_install or its derivatives (like pip and
> > buildout).  easy_install-based tools work as easily with source as
> > binaries.

“binary package” != “setuptools egg”. At least, I didn't take the parent
of P.J.'s post to mean that.

> Right. And untaring and running setup.py install is not exactly a
> massive amount of work either. :)

Time spent installing is only part of the cost. Neither of thosr options
cooperate with the operating system's *own* package management. Which
causes much frustration and wasted time for the user when trying to
later interact with the installed package in some way (use another
package that depends on it, detect whether its installed, remove it
reliably, etc.).

That's when a “binary package”, built by an operating system vendor or
some other trusted third party, is much less effort over time; and many
users know this, and will opt for such packages by preference.

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[Lennart Regebro-2]

2009/11/6 Ben Finney <ben+python@...>:
> Time spent installing is only part of the cost. Neither of thosr options
> cooperate with the operating system's *own* package management.

Well, do to THAT you have to make packages for that systems own
package management, and that's a completely different issue, with it's
own set of problems, religions and wars.

> That's when a “binary package”

> Using the word "binary package" to mean a, built by an operating system vendor or
> some other trusted third party, is much less effort over time; and many
> users know this, and will opt for such packages by preference.

For end user applications, sure. It has not been specified if we are
talking about and end-user application that should have an installer
etc.

Note that this discussion started with bundling distribute so it was
imported from third_party.setuptools instead of just setuptools. A
fairly specific question. Then the discussion suddenly was about
project that had long compile times. And now about making
distro-specific distributions for easy installation.

This is a whole different ballgame from where the discussion started.
Arguments are being made against statements by switching the context
in which the question is being made. That's not a constructive type of
discussion. There is nothing from the initial question that indicates
that it's a big project for end users with loads of C-code in it.
Let's not make the issue more complicated than it already is.

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[Ram Rachum]

Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek <at> gmail.com> writes:
> You need an internet connection unless you provide an archive of
> distribute alongside
> the distribute_setup.py script in your archive. In that case, it will
> use it rather than getting
> it at PyPI,
>
> So yes, there is a way to get it installed with your distribution.
> That's what the next virtualenv release
> does in fact.

Hey, that sounds pretty good! How can I do that exactly?

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