packaging pyc files - again

[Jeff Pitman]

On Monday 09 August 2004 17:37, Zoltan Kota wrote:
> As I know having the pyc
> files might make the application to load a
> bit faster.

I find that Section 6.1.2 found in the below link helps in making some 
packaging policy decisions.

http://docs.python.org/tut/node8.html

In short:

pyc:	byte-compiled (marshalled code objects with 8 byte magic header)
pyo: byte-compiled w/o asserts (-O)
pyo: byte-compiled w/o asserts, __doc__ (-OO)

The Masters of Python had the packaging pyc discussion awhile back: 
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/1999-March/000224.html

Also a good piece on site-python/:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/1999-March/000208.html

So, the current Fedora Python template, I think, needs a bit more 
discussion.  Particularly wrt to Fred Drake's comment:

On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Fred L. Drake wrote:
>  Only use site-python/ if you really are confident that your package
>will stand the test of Python interpreter updates.  Unless there is a
>major problem with diskspace, just don't do this!

Couple of questions I have on the template:

1. Why do you install with -O1 when you're not going to include the .pyo 
and just %ghost them?

2. Does worrying about .pyo also go under Fred's "Unless there is a 
major problem with diskspace" axiom?

3. Why worry about noarch packages vs arch-dependent when changes in the 
Python API could break a package anyway?

4. If there are noarch packages, wouldn't it be prudent to execute the 
compileall during %post since the Python marshalled code objects is 
subject to change between different versions?

thanks,
-- 
-jeff