[Distutils] Build_ext refactoring (was: People want CPAN)

[Greg Ewing]

David Lyon wrote:

> The parts that shouldn't be rewritten (because the people
> that wrote it were too clever - and the degree of difficulty
> to high) is any C interface.

Not exactly sure what you mean by that. If you mean the
knowledge of how to call the C compiler to compile an
extension module on various platforms, I agree that this
is important knowledge that should be preserved.

But if the only way to preserve it is to keep the actual
existing distutils code that implements it, we have a
problem, because that IMO is the part of distutils that
*most* needs improvement. It needs to be broken out of
the monolithic build_ext class somehow so that the
build_ext process can be extended more selectively.

> Evolution is better than revolution is better than nothing
> happening at all.

I don't agree that evolution is better in and of itself
than revolution. They're both means to an end -- getting
something better than we have now. The problem with
distutils is that evolution doesn't seem to have worked.
It has just grown randomly with no clear design and ended
up painting itself into a corner.

-- 
Greg