[petsc-dev] [petsc-maint #80119] Re: make install broken on unix?

[Ethan Coon]

> 
> On Jul 21, 2011, at 4:39 PM, Jed Brown wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 14:37, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> > Maybe pythonscripts?
> > 
> > Seems to me it should be installed like a proper python package, using a suitable setup.py. This usually puts it in $prefix/lib/python2.x/site-packages/.
> 

I disagree with this completely.  There's a tendency to think of everything python as a package -- this is NOT a package.  It has no __init__.py, it has no __all__, it has no submodules, and it doesn't need any of that.  It simply does a one-off task -- it's bits of code to be used in a script.  Putting this sort of code in site-packages is what makes site-packages the nightmare of ignored dependencies and overlapping versions it is today.

If you want to make it into a package, you're welcome to do so.  With that includes registration with the cheeseshop to make sure the namespace is unique, placing the single file within a folder that includes an __init__ (and then likely just gets imported within that __init__), writing a setup.py, etc etc.  It's just complete overkill.

Ethan


-- 
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Ethan Coon
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Applied Mathematics - T-5
Los Alamos National Laboratory
505-665-8289

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~ecoon/
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