I had a question that probably is worth showing up in the archives. Namely:

It seems to me like bizarre bad form for the setup.py file to execute what amounts to a main() function at import time.

I presume this is just some kind of historical accident, and if the early authors of the distutils docs were careful, they'd have recommended:

from distutils.core import setup

if __name__ == '__main__':

    setup()  # FIXME args

rather than just:

from distutils.core import setup

setup()  # FIXME args

Is that an accurate assessment? If so, that's great, because I plan to remark on this bemusedly in my talk. If there is a reason it is the way it is, however, then I will avoid making a joke that is wrong in an important way.

-- Asheesh.