[Distutils] PEP 517 Status

[Paul Moore]

On 6 August 2017 at 00:18, 12345 67890 <xoviat at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been attempting to resolve the horrible easy_install behavior where
> compiled wheels published on pypi are not used to fulfill setup
> requirements. To address this issue, I have submitted pull requests to both
> setuptools and pip that would allow a proprietary communication method that
> can later be easily adjusted to be fully PEP 517 compliant, saving work
> while resolving a specific issue.
>
> However, everyone appears to be ignoring these pull requests, in my
> estimation, because PEP 517 is not fully completed. That’s fine, but partial
> PEP 517 compliance in one area is better than nothing at all, which is
> currently the default scenario.

That's not correct (at least in my case). I'm "ignoring", as you put
it, your PR, because I work on pip in my spare time, and I have
extremely limited time to spend on pip, and I'd rather invest my time
in other areas. That's my choice, and you complaining about my
priorities won't affect it. *All* of the pip developers have very
limited time, and complaining that you are being ignored is frankly
not the best way of getting attention.

To be explicit, I'm currently spending my time on:

1. Mailing list discussions (because I can work on these when not at a
PC with a development setup).
2. Triage of issues (explaining misunderstandings, redirecting issues
that are actually for other projects, confirming issues are real and
requesting PRs, etc)
3. Reviews of PRs where other core pip maintainers or key developers need them.

That pretty much uses up all of the time I have available for pip at the moment.

I'd also note that I've never myself encountered the "horrible
easy_install behavior" you mention, and your description doesn't
remind me of any specific issues that have been raised. That's not to
say that it's not a significant issue - maybe it is - but if you want
to persuade me that it's urgent enough to merit me spending time on
it, I'd appreciate links to your PR, and to one or more issues
reported against pip explaining how the problem is affecting users.

Also, it's important to remember that *no* change will improve things
for users until it's in a released version of pip. The next planned
version is pip 10, and I for one hope that PEP 517 will be in that
version - so why rush in a fix that will only need modifying once PEP
517 is implemented? Even if your proposed change is highly urgent, it
would still be sensible to resolve the question of whether PEP 517
will be implemented in pip 10 before rushing to implement a partial
solution, that by your own admission uses a "proprietary" protocol
rather than following PEP 517.

Sorry if this isn't the response you were hoping for - but hopefully
it explains the situation a little for you.

Paul