[Zope3-dev] reST in Zope 3

[Guido van Rossum]

> in order to complete another couple projects (OnlineHelp for
> example), I would like to insert reST into the Zope 3
> CVS. Unfortunately, reST is incorporated into this large package
> called docutils.
> 
> How should we incorporate this in the CVS? One thing we could do is
> to require docutils to be installed for Zope3, but I think that
> would be bad, or not?  Should I make all of docutils available in
> Zope3?

I recommend that when we adopt 3rd party Python packages, we try to
write our code so that it works whether we include the 3rd party
package or not (in the latter case the user will have to install it
separately).  Then we provide a full distro of the 3rd party package
with certain (end-user-oriented) Zope3 distros, but not with the
developer distro or in CVS.  (It's okay to require a certain version
and complain loudly if an older version is found.)

One advantage of this approach is that it avoids the temptation to
"fix" the 3rd party package, which generally ends up causing more pain
than it's worth.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)