[Pipet Devel] Installation + Directory clean-up

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Brad Chapman wrote:
> 
> > Yes, it'd be MUCH easier to re-import everything.  (Getting rid of
> > "library" will also break a lot of things :-( )
>
> Nah, just the import statements and xpm directories, right? I've been
> trying to put the directories for xpms into constants so that it would
> be easier to fix problems like this.

That sounds cool.  I'll check that out.

> > Hold on a sec.  My understanding is that the "site-packages"
> > directory is used for Python development modules/libraries
> > and not for applications.
> 
> Is it really this well defined? It seems like the site-packages
> directory is for libraries, and the loci code is still a library, it
> is just that we use it and not anyone else :-).

site-packages is for *Python* libraries, modules that are used to develop
programs in Python.  Installing a Python application in...

    /usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages

is like installing a Gnome application in...

    /usr/lib/gnome-libs/include

:-)

> I didn't really know
> that their was a standard on this. By putting a piper module there we
> really aren't competing with anyone's namespace, so I don't really see
> what the big problem with it is.

You've won every debate so far, Brad.  But I think I'm right on this one ;-)

>     Fnorb, for instance, actually has it's fnidl script inside of
> site-packages (so that you set your $PATH to include this script
> inside of site-packages) so all of the code for running this script is
> inside site-packages.

Yeah, but Fnorb is a development tool/library.

> > Also, something like...
> >    /usr[/local]/lib/piper
> > would be acceptable for Unix systems.
> 
> Why do we need a home directory explicitly for Piper? If we start
> doing stuff like this they we'll have to start writing our own
> installation scripts. <sigh> I'm just trying to make use of what is
> already available to do our installation for us. What kind of stuff
> would we be putting in this home directory that makes it necessary?

Usually programs that run under their own username have a directory in /home. 
Mailman, httpd, and cvs all have directories in /home.  They also have shared
repositories: mailing lists, web pages, and cvs modules, respectively.

If Piper is to have a directory in /home, we need to consider whether or not
Piper will (1) run under its own username and (2) have a shared repository. 
If Piper runs under a *user's* name and keeps "everything" in $HOME/piper, it
may not need a /home directory.

The big question is:

    WILL THERE BE ONE PIPER INSTANCE PER COMPUTER OR PER USER?

As for Piper libraries, such as Pied's modules, I REALLY think they should go
under...

    /usr/lib/piper

Look at just a few of the applications that have directories in /usr/lib (from
my own system):

  Mesa-3.1/
  apache/
  cvs/
  dia/
  emacs/
  gimp/
  mc/
  rpm/
  xmms/
  sketch-0.6.0/  ***This is a Python application***

Here is a listing of /usr/lib/sketch-0.6.0:

   1 Lib/         1 Resources/     1 Sketch/       2 sketch.py*
   1 Plugins/     1 Script/        5 sk2ps.py*

Notice the executables.

BUT, will Distutils handle the installation of libraries into /usr/lib/piper?

Cheers.
Jeff
-- 
                      +----------------------------------+
                      |           J.W. Bizzaro           |
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                      | http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff/ |
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                      |        BIOINFORMATICS.ORG        |
                      |           The Open Lab           |
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