[Distutils] Configuration etc.

[David Ascher]

On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> The package installer we are currently discussing could handle that as
> well - almost. It should in any case be possible to install several
> packages at the same time; otherwise packages with circular
> dependencies could not be installed at all. So if the installer could
> also treat an archive of packages (in whatever convenient format),
> it would be easy to set up distributions of multiple packages.
> 
> The reason I said "almost" is that the Python interpreter must always
> be there first. At least for Unix, I see no way around this, and for
> other platforms I don't know. And (again for Unix) I don't think
> anyone would object to install two things for some application.

I haven't had a chance to look at all the proposals in detail, but I just
wanted to remind folks that not all "extensions" are really Python
extensions, but they'd be nice things to have in a distribution anyway --
anything from non-Python specific libraries (netcdf, gd, t1lib, whatever)
to large things like Tcl/Tk.  Tcl/Tk is especially important for the usual
reasons.  In a word, some thought should be put into thinking about other
non-controllable systems (e.g., no matter what Greg W says, Ousterhout
isn't going to follow his recommendations =).

I don't think we can or should be all-encompassing, but *thinking* a bit
about these problems could avoid some pitfalls.

--david