[Distutils] Distutils integration

[Greg Ward]

On 29 November 1999, Greg Stein said:
> Don't let Greg dissuade you. In almost all cases, something is better than
> nothing. The current state of a Python archive (or index) is pretty
> abysmal.
> 
> Keep doing what you're doing! Don't stop! :-)

Umm, yeah, what he said.  One True (Meta-)Archive would be best, but Yet
Another (Meta-)Archive is better than nothing at all.

> I argued the same topic (different approach, tho) on the trove-dev mailing
> list (archives at www.python.org/pipermail/trove-dev). Basically, I
> believe the current Internet user is looking for a Freshmeat-style index,
> rather than a sunsite-style repository. Repositories are passe, indexes
> are The Right And Just Way. :-)

Again, I *mostly* agree -- meta-archives OK as long as link-checking is
rigorously done.  And central repositories may be passe and hard to
scale, but they sure as heck are convenient once you know you're way
around them.  

> I posted a little version number parser about a year ago, I think. It
> handles most forms of version numbers, returning a tuple that can be
> properly ordered (among the software's other releases using that version
> number pattern).
> 
> If you need to parse version numbers, that's the function to use.

That version number parser is lurking in the Distutils distribution
(class LooseVersion in module distutils.version).  Currently it fails
its test suite because we never did work out those differences of
opinion on what version numbers mean.  ;-)

        Greg
-- 
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