Recommending people Snap things in response to valid packaging problems (WAS: Re: need help resolving python-setuptools backport fail)

[Simon Quigley]

Hey,

On 12/06/2017 04:32 AM, Oliver Grawert wrote:
> Yes, if the original question was about a python backport exercise it
> definitely does not answer this and i'm sorry if i de-railed the track
> with the answer ... it is just that creating a 20 line snapcraft.yaml
> file to backport something is a lot easier than having to manage a
> whole python stack :)

The difference here is that in order to figure out that 20 line yaml
file it often takes a fair bit of time (several hours in my experience),
to get all the isolation bits etc. working properly.

I guess maybe I'm not a fan of the fact that now apparently the standard
solution to "I'm having this interesting packaging problem, any ideas?"
is now "have you tried packaging the thing in this completely different
packaging format that oversimplifies things?" because it doesn't really
help the people who want to learn and work on actual packaging (as
opposed to putting everything in a yaml file) and it completely avoids
the actual problem at hand.

But maybe this is just me who has noticed that this is an increasing
trend in responses to emails like this...

>> I
>> find it quite possible that the question will still stand regardless
>> of
>> whether or not I considered a snap. This is a build-level issue, from
>> what I can tell, not necessarily a matter of the packaging framework.
>> That said, do you have any relevant advice?
>>
> not for doing a backport of the whole python stack as deb packages,
> no... i disagree that this is no build level issue though, given that
> snapcraft will simply care for getting the right deps for you without
> any additional backport work when packaging offlineimap with it though
> ... 
> 
> anyway, sorry for hijacking the thread, i was just trying to point out
> an easy way here to achieve the same goal ...

"I know how to package in this one format that just involves throwing it
all into a yaml file and it will automagically figure out all the deps
for you" -- doesn't really solve the problem, but as I said above, seems
to be the "blanket solution" nowadays.

Just my two cents, my opinions are my own.

Thanks,
-- 
Simon Quigley
tsimonq2 at ubuntu.com
tsimonq2 on freenode and OFTC
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