I did find one recent argument for revisiting that decision, which also
provides an alternate easy_install-compatible setup.py:

http://jannisleidel.com/2007/11/using-django-with-setuptools/

Tres.

I also like Ian's suggestion:

With a little hack you can use setuptools with distutils setup.py's. Setuptools monkeypatches distutils.core.setup(), so anything run after you import setuptools gets all the setuptools features. To make use of this you can do:

python -c "import setuptools, os; __file__=os.path.abspath('setup.py'); execfile('setup.py')" develop

Or whatever command you want to run.

Comment by Ian Bicking — November 26, 2007 @ 10:09 pm

It would be interesting to have a monkeypatch toolkit you could use on any badly written setup.py and force it to work the "correct" way. Perhaps a GHOP project? Monkeypatch to egg....?