[Python-Dev] setuptools in 2.5.

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Anthony Baxter wrote:
> Not without a lot of the other stuff that's in setuptools. 
> 
>> That is says from itself that it is version 0.7a1dev-r45536
>> doesn't help to reduce that fear.
> 
> It's had _two_ _years_ of quite active development, so the version 
> number of 0.7 is hardly a good indication. As far as all the other 
> stuff on the end of the version string - well, right now Python's SVN 
> trunk really could be considered 2.5a2dev-r45575.

Right - I'm not concerned about the "a1dev-r45536" part. The 0.7
part bothers me; this is two years of development from a single
person, still. I have projects that are much older than that
that I wouldn't suggest for inclusion in Python :-)

>> Requiring Phillip to rewrite distutils instead is certainly
>> unfair - but I'm still unhappy with the path events take.
> 
> He's written code on _top_ _of_ _distutils_. How is this bad?

It makes distutils an implementation detail of setuptools. What
little development distutils has seen will stop; all fixes will
go into setuptools directly. Users will be told that they should
switch to setuptools.

Please face it: setuptools *is* the death of distutils.

This might not be that bad in the long run, but it does have
the risk of repeating, when setuptools eventually is where
distutils is today: complete, and unmaintained.

> See, I don't get the hostility thing. While I have some concerns about 
> the state of distutils today, I still admire Greg Ward's efforts in 
> producing the code, and Python is in a much better place than had he 
> not done the work. Responding to an effort like Greg's, or Phillip's, 
> with hostility is a fantastic way to discourage people from working 
> further on Python or on the code in question. 

Well, I appreciate other contributions from other people, and I have
always encouraged people to contribute to Python. It's just that
I dislike this *specific* package, for several reasons, some of which
I consider objective.

Regards,
Martin