[Distutils] stable, working system

[Greg Ward]

On 27 January 2000, Curtis Jensen said:
> Do not expect perfection: if you're trying out this
> release, it should be because you want to help debug and develop, not
> because you need a stable, working system immediately.
> 
> Something as widely used as Numeric requires a module that is in it's
> beta version?  Is this to force bug reports?

Calling Distutils "beta" is quite generous.  I would say that it's
"under development", i.e. pre-alpha.  Whatever that means.

Paul's decision could be seen as a bit, ummm, controversial.  If it
smokes out bugs in Distutils -- as it is already doing -- that's
definitely a long-term good thing.  It does put the poor folks just
trying to use Numeric into a bit of a guinea pig situation, though.
'bout all I can say is that I will do my damndest to fix the bugs you
folks do find.  (Of course, I'm momentarily stumped by the two most
recent bug reports, including yours.  However, it's after midnight on
the last day of the Python Conference, and my brain is quite thoroughly
fried.  Hopefully I'll be better able to think about compiler options on
HP-UX in the morning...)

        Greg