conda-forge packages

Trước tiên, hãy đọc tài liệu adding_pkgs của conda-forge, sau đó kiểm tra packaging hiện tại của DSS_Python và thiết lập build tách rời của DSS C-API. Chạy các bài kiểm thử cơ bản của DSS_Python được đề cập trong issue; công việc được xem là hoàn tất khi có một recipe conda-forge hoạt động, các bài kiểm thử package đều đạt và các vấn đề cần xem xét về hỗ trợ cho những nền tảng được liệt kê đã được giải quyết.

Moving my comment below into a new ticket now that conda packages are available at https://anaconda.org/dss-extensions/dss_python

It's a good idea to revisit this later, providing a conda-forge recipe. Conda-forge dropped 32-bit packages a while ago, but providing DSS_Python and OpenDSSDirect.py on conda-forge is valuable. The 32-bit packages would still be available on PyPI (they're useful especially for testing).

For me, conda itself has been kind of a letdown the past few years. I imagined the commercial interest doesn't align well with it. The Anaconda.org repositories frequently have issues, reported both for DSS_Python (most people download it from PyPI anyway) and NILMTK (the recommended install method is conda due to the dependencies).

Conda-build, specifically, is really bad on Windows. Even if I can build normal/wheel packages easily on Windows, conda-build craps itself on the minimum unexpected thing that Anaconda didn't expect. There are many unresolved tickets with no useful feedback, some for multiple years.

Some third-party projects like Mamba (replaces the conda installation tool) and Boa (replaces conda-build) might help things.

To alleviate things and save my time, I'll investigate conda-forge tooling and settings since it should reduce the maintenance of conda-packages here. If successful, might be worth to officially submit the packages to the conda-forge repository. Conda-forge also supports ARM64 and (limited) PyPy, which the official conda repos don't.

Docs: https://conda-forge.org/docs/maintainer/adding_pkgs.html

Since we decoupled DSS C-API builds from DSS_Python a while ago, shouldn't be too hard. Before submitting the new packages to conda-forge, it's better to provide some basic tests in DSS_Python too.

About PyPy:

• https://github.com/conda-forge/conda-forge.github.io/issues/867
• https://conda-forge.org/docs/maintainer/knowledge_base.html#pypy-builds

EDIT: there is now (Feb 2024) whl2conda; not sure it that's acceptable for conda-forge, but it's an option if we want to distribute conda packages again