[Distutils] specifying --with-featurename with ez_setup.py / easy_install

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 08:19 PM 10/2/2005 -0500, Matthew Scott wrote:
>It does beg the question though, what is the intended use case of
>'Feature' if features cannot be selected when installing using
>easy_install?

"Features" predated even the whisper of a concept of Python eggs by at 
least 8-10 months, and the idea of having easy_install by about a year and 
a half.  So, they weren't designed together.

Features were originally conceived as a way of trimming down 
mega-distributions like PEAK and especially Zope 3.  You'll notice that 
setuptools' documentation doesn't mention them at all, though, because eggs 
are more useful.

Currently, I'm only using "features" for a few of my packages, mostly to 
control building of the associated optional C code.  However, that feature 
could be handled using an "optional" extensions ala mxSetup.

So, I'd probably say that the "features" facility is kind of deprecated, 
especially since it has a few quirks that don't work so well.  For example, 
if you build without the feature, and then run "install" or something, the 
package doesn't "stay configured" for the options you gave it 
previously.  So, it doesn't really work all that well and will probably die 
out of setuptools as soon as I have a chance to rework my packages that use it.

Certainly, I'd like to know if anyone else has found productive uses for 
it.  If there are any, I'd consider keeping it in, but it seems to me like 
what's really needed is a "configure" command and a way to write the 
configuration to a file that then is used by subsequent runs to ensure 
consistency.