[Distutils] Questions about distutils strategy

[Greg Ward]

On 07 December 1999, James C. Ahlstrom said:
> Distutils makes sense on Unix where things are done with
> makefiles.  Why do we even care if Windows developers make
> Python extensions in DevStudio?

The whole point of Distutils is to allow Joe Unix Geek to develop module
distributions that will build and install painlessly on non-Unix
systems, *and* Jane Windows Weenie to develop module distributions that
will build and install painlessly on non-Windows systems.  If Jane is
writing Windows-only extensions, then nobody's forcing her to use
Distutils and maintain a setup script (although it would be nice).
Ditto for Joe writing Unix-only extensions.

That means that Unix geeks can't use makefiles to distribute their
Python modules, and it means that Windows weenies can't use Microsoft's
project files to distribute their Python modules.  The bad news is that
if you really really want to use the local convention for automated
building (both of which have advantages), you have to maintain a
separate setup.py script.  The good news is that setup.py is portable
and written in a real programming language.

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward - software developer                    gward@cnri.reston.va.us
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