Packaging¶
Python packaging has a long and tangled history. Distutils shipped in 1.6, setuptools added features (and complexity), distribute forked setuptools, distutils2 tried to start fresh, and eventually pip and the Python Packaging Authority brought some order to it all. This section captures that entire arc – design documents, sprint notes, proposals, surveys, and tool-specific pages. A lot of it is historical, but it is useful history if you want to understand why packaging works the way it does today.
Overviews and Tools¶
Packaging – status page for the standard library
packagingmodule (what distutils2 became, briefly, in Python 3.3)Packaging subpages – sprint notes and related proposals
Distutils – the original packaging system, shipped with Python since 1.6
Distutils subpages – proposals and related distutils documentation
Distutils2 – the clean-room rewrite of distutils, developed outside the standard library
Distutils2 subpages – contributing guidelines, sprint setup, and related docs
Distribute – the project that forked setuptools to rethink distutils’ future
Distribute subpages – additional distribute documentation
EasyInstall – setuptools’
easy_installcommand for remote package installationSetuptoolsFeatures – mapping setuptools features to their distutils2/packaging equivalents
Virtualenv – tool for creating isolated Python environments
buildout – Zope-originated build system for managing eggs and deployment
buildout subpages – additional buildout documentation
PyPI (The Python Package Index)¶
PyPI – overview of the Python Package Index
PyPI subpages – additional PyPI documentation
A new pypi module – draft PEP by Tarek Ziade for a
pypipackage in the standard libraryCloudPyPI – canceled project to mirror PyPI on Amazon CloudFront (now unnecessary since PyPI uses Fastly)
CloudPyPI subpages – additional CloudPyPI documentation
PyPIComments – discussion about per-package commenting and rating on PyPI
PyPISimple – documentation for PyPI’s Simple API
PyPITestingInfrastructure – infrastructure for testing and analyzing PyPI packages
PipAndDistutils2 – plans for pip to support distutils2/packaging alongside setuptools
Sprints, BOFs, and Community Discussions¶
DistributeSprint – sprint to work on distutils PEPs
DistutilsBof – distutils birds-of-a-feather meeting notes
DistutilsMetadata – notes on distutils metadata (stub page)
DistutilsSprint – distutils development sprint
DistutilsTesting – discussion of functional testing for distutils
PackagingBOF – packaging birds-of-a-feather meeting summary
Packaging Survey – community survey about packaging workflows
PackagingPy2Porting – strategy for backporting the
packagingmodule to Python 2.4-3.2SummerOfCode subpages – Google Summer of Code packaging projects
Related Topics¶
DistributedProgramming – guide to distributed computing in Python (CORBA, XML-RPC, SOAP, and more)