debhelper improvements for Python

blueprint

UDS-P session notes

Standardised way to do testing? setuptools + packaging have "setup.py test"

• it would be nice if distutils would exit 0 here...

Testing:

• Barry proposes a tool, pyti (GSOC project), that can introspect a package and work out how to test it.
• Barry is working with distutils SIG to get the test info into the egg-info output
• Piotr will rewrite py3multibuild soon, now that 2.7 is the only supported version, this is the priority.
  • It will live in python-defaults, target 3 (primarily) and 2.7

dh_python2 in lucid:

• Some bugs seen in oneiric due to dh_python2.
• Doko proposes backporting the maverick dh_python2
• Build flags. There is a standard way of passing flags to setup.py, but this requires patching distutils / setuptools.

dh_python2 transition in oneric:

• Some patches were rejected because lucid doesn't have dh_python2 yet.
• Many patches accepted.
• Many ignored so far.
• Gtk and Gnome converted.

MIR team only accepting dh_python2.

Alternative pythons:

• Python3 can support this relatively sanely.
• How to state support:
• * tox can help test across python implementations.
• pypy still moving too fast to be included, but there are PPAs

Rebuild all python packages that are still have 2.6 extensions. Build lsb with python3 again

Action items:

• barry to look into getting distutils to exit 0
• slangasek to file a bug about build flags against distribute, python2.7, python3.2
• doko: dh_python2 in lucid
• doko to rebuild python packages with 2.6 extensions
• doko to port lsb again