[Numpy-discussion] Proposal: split numpy.distutils into it's own package

[Pauli Virtanen]

la, 2020-10-24 kello 03:11 -0400, Dustin Spicuzza kirjoitti:
> Cross-compiling scipy and other projects that depend on numpy's
> distutils is a huge pain right now, because to do it [in addition to
> lots of other details that you have to get right] you have to have
> both
> a native and cross-compiled version of numpy installed. It seems
> pretty
> unreasonable that I need a native version of numpy installed to
> compile
> scipy. One might ask, why is this needed?

Factoring out numpy.distutils from numpy alone will not enable
compiling scipy without numpy being installed. It probably can help,
though, and might make sense also in view of the incoming deprecation
of Python distutils (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0632/).

Extension modules, including f2py, need numpy headers and probably also
their platform-specific configuration. There are also some assumptions
about data type sizes and Numpy versions at build-time being compatible
with the ones at runtime, which factoring out distutils won't address.
IIUC, cross-compilation is not actually supported, so that it can be
made to work is surprising.

	Pauli