Change the future

Saturday 1:40 p.m.–2:25 p.m.

Panel: Directions for Packaging

Nick Coghlan, Barry Warsaw, Éric Araujo

Audience level:
Experienced
Category:
Packaging

Description

What needs to happen to finally offer a first-class packaging experience to Python users? Several of the people working directly on that problem will be here to answer your questions.

Abstract

One feature originally planned for Python 3.3 was the inclusion of a new "packaging" library to provide updated tools for building, packaging, distributing and installing Python software. This addition was based on a lot of good work between 2008 and 2010 building consensus around a number of PEPs defining updated distribution standards. Unfortunately, not all issues were addressed by these specifications, and additional problems inherited from distutils were still present in the design. Dropping the feature was considered the best available option, and further work is now underway to come up with sensible plans for Python 3.4 and beyond.

Several of the developers involved will be meeting at PyCon US 2013 to discuss those plans. This panel is a chance for the wider community to meet some of the people attempting to "fix Python packaging", and learn more about the current efforts in this space.

Panelists will each provide a brief description of their involvement in Python packaging and related systems, including a short summary from Éric Araujo of some of the lessons learned from the earlier distutils2/packaging effort. The bulk of the session will be devoted to answering questions from audience members and the rest of the Python community.

Your panelists will be: Nick Coghlan (moderator, CPython) Éric Araujo (distutils2) Daniel Holth (wheel, bento) Jim Fulton (zc.buildout) Marcus Smith (pip, virtualenv) Richard Jones (PyPI) * Jason R. Coombs (distribute)

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