[Python-Dev] a new setuptools release?

[P.J. Eby]

At 10:46 PM 10/7/2009 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>P.J. Eby wrote:
> > At 07:27 PM 10/7/2009 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> >> Having more competition will also help, e.g. ActiveState's PyPM looks
> >> promising (provided they choose to open-source it) and then there's
> >> pip.
> >
> > Note that both PyPM and pip use setuptools as an important piece of
> > their implementation (as does buildout), so they are technically the
> > competition of easy_install, rather than setuptools per se.
> >
> > IOW, putting setuptools in the stdlib wouldn't be declaring a victor in
> > the installation tools competition, it'd simply be providing
> > infrastructure for (present and future) tools to build on.
>
>I'm sure that some implementation of some of the concepts of
>setuptools will end up in the stdlib - in a well-integrated and
>distutils compatible form.
>
>Perhaps we can even find a way to remove the need for .pth files
>and long sys.path lists :-)

Setuptools doesn't *require* either of those now.  Installing in 
flat, distutils-compatible format has been supported for years, and 
.pth files are only needed for good namespace package support.  But 
PEP 382 makes namespace packages possible without .pth files, so even 
that could go away.