Making pepatac installable

[nsheff]

What do you think about making pepatac installable, so you could pip install pepatac ?

This wouldn't install all the dependencies, obviously, but it could install the pipeline itself, which would allow users to skip the extra git clone step.

I've shied away from making these pipelines installable in the past because I've always seen them as development-oriented, and you'd be changing them, or using different versions with different projects, etc. So, it's always felt easier for me to manage them if they are not installed, so that I can maintain a copy of the pipeline as just a folder, which is part of a project. Installing would make them more global. I mean, you could use virtual environments, sure, but that also introduces more complexity.

But, I can see the value in terms of simplicity of install, which has been a sticking point.

[jpsmith5]

I follow the simplicity to install logic, but in this case, is there a quantifiable difference when it comes to actually using the pipeline?

Isn't it just:

git clone https://github.com/databio/pepatac.git

versus:

pip install pepatac

The only more challenging usage is including the path to pipelines/pepatac.py as opposed to just calling pepatac directly if it's pip installed? And you could potentially add the path to your PATH ENV_VAR to accomplish a similar ease of calling the pipeline? Or am I overlooking something here that makes pip install much better? I'm not opposed if it makes sense, just trying to fully understand.

[nsheff]

yes I have to think about it still, but:

• git requires git to be installed; pip you'd already need for the other stuff.
• could it be lumped in the pip install requirements.txt step, eliminating this step completely?

I think a reason we didn't do this is that the pipeline interface should be external to the pipeline. how would you edit the piface if it's installed? would you need to? right now pep points the piface, which you couldn't do?