[Python-Dev] Distutils for the std. library (was: Expat module)

[Greg Ward]

On 30 March 2000, Andrew M. Kuchling said:
> Should we consider replacing the makesetup/Setup.in mechanism with a
> setup.py script that uses the Distutils?  You'd have to compile a
> minipython with just enough critical modules -- strop and posixmodule
> are probably the most important ones -- in order to run setup.py.
> It's something I'd like to look at for 1.6, because then you could be
> much smarter in automatically enabling modules.

Gee, I didn't think anyone was gonna open *that* can of worms for 1.6.
Obviously, I'd love to see the Distutils used to build parts of the
Python library.  Some possible problems:

  * Distutils relies heavily on the sys, os, string, and re modules,
    so those would have to be built and included in the mythical
    mini-python (as would everything they rely on -- strop, pcre, ... ?)

  * Distutils currently assumes that it's working with an installed
    Python -- it doesn't know anything about working in the Python
    source tree.  I think this could be fixed just be tweaking the
    distutils.sysconfig module, but there might be subtle assumptions
    elsewhere in the code.

  * I haven't written the mythical Autoconf-in-Python yet, so we'd still have
    to rely on either the configure script or user intervention to find
    out whether library X is installed, and where its header and library
    files live (for X in zlib, tcl, tk, ...).

Of course, the configure script would still be needed to build the
mini-python, so it's not going away any time soon.

        Greg