Re: Release on PyPi



On Thu, 2018-06-28 at 19:28 +0100, Chandan Singh wrote:
Hi Tristan,

I don't think that BuildStream is really suitable for distribution in
the python package distribution model.

I agree that the python packaging model isn't quite right for BuildStream
and as you mention we have issues with pip even locally. But, my point is that
while we are using pip anyway, we might as well upload it to PyPi so that
install and update operations become slightly simpler and do not require a Git
checkout of the BuildStream repository.

The way I look at it, if we are going to solve #332 relatively soon, then we
should definitely wait for it. Otherwise, I do see some value in publishing to
PyPi with the understanding that we may change the preferred method of
installation in future.

What do you think?

If we keep in mind that PyPi is not the ideal solution for distributing
BuildStream, and if "making it work" does not cause too much of a
disaster in the BuildStream codebase itself, then I have no objections
to patches which make BuildStream available on PyPi.

Note that I do not expect someone to come up with a patch which
provides our users with an ideal installation story either, e.g.:

  pip3 install BuildStream

Due to our not having only pure python dependencies, I expect there to
still be a fairly long list of exceptions and preparation that a user
has to do first, to ensure the above command actually *works*. E.g. we
currently still have a dependency on a host C compiler because of our
dependency on python `psutils` which invokes a C compiler through the
python setuptools/distutils codepaths.

For dependencies like OSTree and fuse, I don't know what the story will
look like.

I still wonder if... as I suspect in the end we still have to ensure
our non Python dependencies are available manually... if the install
command simply changes from:

  `git clone buildstream`
  `pip3 install --user .`

to:

  `pip3 install BuildStream`

Then will this change the UX at all ? Will we have made valuable use of
our time creating this ?


As I said above, if the patches are not a disaster and we keep in mind
that a PyPi entry might be deprecated by a more distro package type of
install... I won't object to them.

Cheers,
    -Tristan




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