Re: [cclib-devel] cclib debs

[Noel O'B. <bao...@gm...>]

On 02/06/07, Karol Langner <kar...@kn...> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  Since I haven't seen any debs of cclib on the web (I have seen queries about
> it) and I have some experience in making them, I've decided to take a shot at
> it. It would be nice to get cclib into the Debian packaging system, and from
> what I gather it can be done pretty quickly. I need to find a bit of time to
> tune things, but I made a quick build today - they install and seem to work
> fine on my Debian etch installation. You can find all the related files here:
> http://www.mml.ch.pwr.wroc.pl/langner/tmp/debs/
>
> Notice that I also built a packages called 'cclib-data', which has the test
> scripts and data files. At the moment, it installs into the same directory as
> cclib, but cannot be accessed from Python.
>
> My question for you are:
>
> 1. Do you use cclib on Debian and would be willing to test these packages?
No.

> 2. Do you have colleagues that use cclib on Debian and would be willing to
> test these packages?
>
> 3. Would you be interested in seeing debs of GaussSum and/or PyMOLyze? I'm not
> aware if any exist already.
GaussSum's already in there.

> 4. A testing issue has occured to me while testing the packages. It should be
> possible to run the test suite we have from the Python interpreter. I think
> that adding this is a good idea for the next release, together with an option
> in setup.py to install the test scripts and data files. What are you poinions
> on this?

Well, I think you should see how this is done for other packages
first. The general recommendation is that "python setup.py test"
should run the tests. But I think you are suggesting something beyond
this.

To be honest, I'm not very interested in getting cclib into any of the
distributions. Of course, you are welcome to do it. However, since the
API has not currently settled, you are going to have problems if some
program, e.g. PyMOlyze/GaussSum, starts to depend on it. Basically,
you will find it difficult ever to upgrade it if the API changes.
Also, cclib has optional dependencies on openbabel, BioPytho, PyQuante
(and pyvtk?), which will need to be sorted out. I don't mean to
discourage you, but I don't know if it's a good thing to be stuck with
a version of cclib in Debian that's 1.5 years out of date, especially
when Python packages are pretty easy to install, and cclib has been
changing a lot from one release to the next. I'd actually be more
interested in getting a Python egg together for
ez_setup.py/setuptools. I don't know what the current situation is
with eggs and Debian though.

> Cheers,
> Karol
>
> --
> written by Karol Langner
> Sat Jun  2 15:44:18 CEST 2007
>