setup.py (was Re: [Zope-Coders] RE: [Zope-Checkins] CVS: Zope/doc - INSTALL.txt:1.32)

[Shane Hathaway]

Matt Behrens wrote:
>>I'm a little confused about the Makefile ideas, though.  Almost all 
>>Python packages have a setup.py *instead of* a Makefile.  What does the 
>>Makefile do?  And isn't that a problem for Windows installs, where there 
>>is no "make" command?
> 
> 
> In the installer branch, more is done besides just installing the Zope
> packages into a software home.  There is also a control script that gets
> installed and system-wide configuration files for that script.  Consider
> configure and Makefile the UNIX entry point for using Zope as an
> application as opposed to a set of packages.  Very little in either of
> them makes sense on Windows.  They facilitate getting from 0 to Zope on
> UNIX-like systems.

Ok, I see now.  It didn't really make sense to me until I ran your 
"configure" script.  Its output starts with the line "Zope source 
distribution configuration utility", which implies that most people 
don't need it.  That makes sense, and it might help distribution makers 
build Zope packages.

I like your work, but do you envision allowing people to run directly 
from the source directory, as easily as they can today?  Since you 
presumably intend to get rid of wo_pcgi.py, something else needs to 
create a script that can start and stop Zope from the source directory. 
  And I think the thing that creates that script has to work on both 
Unix and Windows.

Shane