On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 12:27:52 +0000 (UTC) Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
For me, the bigger problem with the present distutils2/packaging implementation is that it propagates the command-class style of design which IMO caused so much pain in extending distutils. Perhaps some of the dafter limitations have been removed, and no doubt the rationale was to get to something usable more quickly, but it seems a bit like papering over cracks.
Remember that distutils2 was at first distutils. It was only decided to be forked as a "new" package when some people complained. This explains a lot of the methodology. Also, forking distutils helped maintain a strong level of compatibility. Apparently people now think it's time to redesign it all. That's fine, but it won't work without a huge amount of man-hours. It's not like you can write a couple of PEPs and call it done. Regards Antoine.