Claiming ‘/usr/bin/coverage’ for a Python-specific programmer tool (was: Using update-alternatives for /usr/bin provided binaries)
Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> writes:
> On 10/15/2013 07:04 PM, Jakub Wilk wrote:> Apparently two (mostly
> orthogonal) problems have been squeezed into a
> > single bug report:
> >
> > 1) Is the name /usr/bin/coverage appropriate?
>
> Please let's focus on providing /usr/bin/coverage.
I'm not convinced Debian's ‘python-coverage’ should arrogate the name
‘/usr/bin/coverage’ to itself. We all seem to agree; your position seems
to be that a decision made upstream should overrule that.
> I don't really care by what mechanism, as long as the unit tests are
> working, and Debian behaves like upstream coverage package from pypi.
As with a lot of other software, Debian packages can patch hard-coded
command name invocations to match the command names in Debian.
I've had to do this with other works; I've even had productive
discussions with upstream to convince them not to hard-code the command
names everywhere and allow parameterised command names to make packaging
easier.
> Nearly all OpenStack projects are using testrepository. All of them
> are using python-coverage.
That sounds like an excellent central point to make the command name
parameterisable: fix it in one place to match the Debian
‘python-coverage’ package, and all OpenStack packages can benefit from
that.
Note that I don't know whether that would work, but it's one option that
seems available.
> Many python modules are as well, and I had to patch some of them to
> avoid the problem (sorry, I can't remember which one right now...). I
> would like that it doesn't happen again, and also that our users (eg:
> developers trying to find out unit test coverage) can run the coverage
> tests without troubles.
Patching upstream's assumptions of command names is a feature of the
landscape for Debian packagers. I don't consider that a reason to
presume ‘/usr/bin/coverage’ on Debian should refer to a Python-specific
tool.
--
\ “Why doesn't Python warn that it's not 100% perfect? Are people |
`\ just supposed to “know” this, magically?” —Mitya Sirenef, |
_o__) comp.lang.python, 2012-12-27 |
Ben Finney
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