[Python-Dev] "setuptools has divided the Python community"

[P.J. Eby]

At 07:40 AM 3/25/2009 -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>Well, sorry, but this complex layered interdependent architecture is
>one of the *causes* of confusion -- apart from you nobody knows what
>is what exactly,

I'll pick a minor nit here...  buildout, pip, and a wide variety of 
other tools and frameworks out there wouldn't exist if I were really 
the only person who knew "what's what".  And I believe most of those 
people will be at the summit.

That having been said, the setuptools documentation definitely sucks 
for the casual reader or curious observer, as opposed to those who 
have serious itches to scratch in the area of dependencies or 
plugins.  Combine that with the practical-but-impure choices I made 
in easy_install to get *something* working, and you have a recipe for 
the current situation.

pkg_resources, for example, is only bundled with setuptools because 
it couldn't go in the stdlib when it was written.  easy_install, 
OTOH, is bundled with setuptools because *setuptools* isn't in the 
stdlib!  (And of course, both use pkg_resources.)

So ironically, setuptools is bundled in the way that it is, precisely 
*because* there's no support for dependencies in the stdlib...  and 
nicely illustrates why smaller libraries (and less bundling) is a *good* thing.