April 8, 2005

docutils Install Review

This is the entire review for a docutils install I recently performed:

Very simple installation under Cygwin: literally unpack the tar file, change to the source directory and run

python setup.py install

No errors, docutils is now a site-package!
Now that PyCon is over I've had a little time to start tweaking a feature I've wanted to add to the Holden Web site for quite a while. I end up looking at, and frequently installing, a lot of open source software. The installation routines are of variable quality and sometimes I have to stumble my way through, sometimes I never get to the end.

So the new "Python Reviews" section (which may end up being renamed) is there to report on installation activity. It is also a test bed for my first significant use of reStructuredText (of which more later), so I suppose it's appropriate that this blog's title links to the install review for the docutils software that converts reStructuredText into HTML.

As with other non-production features the section isn't listed on the home page, but it should appear in the left-hand navigation bar of all body pages. The article format is still experimental, and decisions about whether it's worth keeping the source in a database rather than in files remain to be addressed.

The news feature is currently driven by analysing the results of a search for "Python" in O'Reilly's meerkat feed, but it isn't yet updating automagically on the new host, and other sources should ideally be included.

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