[Distutils]New stuff on SIG web site

[Greg Ward]

Hi all --

I've started writing up some detailed requirements/design documentation
for the distutils suite.  Most of this builds on what was covered at the
Developer's Day session back in November, so those of you who were there
should read it to make sure I'm not interpolating *too* much extra
nonsense.  I am definitely interpolating some things, though: there's a
lot more detail in these documents than in the Developer's Day summary I
wrote up.

Anyways, just visit the SIG's web home at

    http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/distutils.html

and read the "Requirements", "Common tasks", and "Proposed interface"
documents.  Please post substantive comments to the list; typos and such 
can just be mailed straight to me.

Incidentally, posting these documents could be interpreted as a snub to
those of you who have been suggesting your own extension building
systems.  Au contraire!  Rather, this is meant to be a prelude to diving
into those other systems; after all, how can we evaluate their
suitability unless we have an explicit list of requirements?  And how
can we evaluate their usability unless we can compare them to an
interface that, while theoretical, was agreed upon as a "good thing" by
(apparently) all the people in the Developer's Day session?  If an
existing system can be found that meets (or can be made to meet) all the
suitability and usability requirements, then our job is made a lot
easier.  But we must have objective grounds for evaluating those
requirements, and what I've done is a stab in that direction.

FWIW, I've also tweaked and renamed the "Introduction" page, and
converted the SIG charter to HTML.  Woo-hoo.

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward - software developer                    gward@cnri.reston.va.us
Corporation for National Research Initiatives    
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