[Distutils] The problem with Setuptools on Python 3.

[David Cournapeau]

Tarek Ziadé wrote:
>
> no it doesn't.  it's a generic tool to extend a command using plugins.
>   

OK.

>
> Sorry, it's too easy to say "it sucks, scratch it and re-do it" ;)
>   

Yes, it is easy to say it sucks, but I am not saying that out of thin
air. Refactoring works if the general API is ok - but that's not the
case with distutils. As a data point, several people have tried to add
features to distutils in numpy extensions, and I went much further than
anyone else by bypassing distutils entirely, replacing the build_*
commands by scons. The core codebase is ten times smaller than the
original code it replaces (numpy.distutils is around 10 000 LOC, like
distutils itself).

I agree that in the short term, distutils should be improved, but in the
long term, I don't see anything which would be both a significant
improvement while staying backward compatible with distutils, if only
because so many setup.py files depend on implementation details of
distutils.

cheers,

Davud