[Python-Dev] [Distutils] Is is worth disentangling distutils?

[Nick Coghlan]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Antonio Cavallo
<a.cavallo at cavallinux.eu>wrote:

> I'll have a look into distutils2, I tough it was (another) dead end.
> I every case my target is py2k (2.7.x) and I've no case for transitioning
> to py3k (too much risk).


distutils2 started as a copy of distutils, so it's hard to tell the
difference between the parts which have been fixed and the parts which are
still just distutils legacy components (this is why the merge back was
dropped from 3.3 - too many pieces simply weren't ready and simply would
have perpetuated problems inherited from distutils).

distlib (https://distlib.readthedocs.org/en/latest/overview.html) is a
successor project that takes a different view of building up the low level
pieces without inheriting the bad parts of the distutils legacy (a problem
suffered by both setuptools/distribute and distutils2). distlib also runs
natively on both 2.x and 3.x, as the idea is that these interoperability
standards should be well supported in *current* Python versions, not just
those where the stdlib has caught up (i.e. now 3.4 at the earliest)

The aim is to get to a situation more like that with wsgiref, where the
stdlib defines the foundation and key APIs and data formats needed for
interoperability, while allowing a flourishing ecosystem of user-oriented
tools (like pip, bento, zc.buildout, etc) that still solve the key problems
addressed by setuptools/distribute without the opaque and hard to extend
distutils core that can make the existing tools impossible to debug when
they go wrong.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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