[Distutils] distutils version numbering

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Thomas Heller wrote:
> "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>>
>>>hi there,
>>>I'm writing a custom 'build_scripts' command
>>>that works around a bug in earlier versions
>>>of distutils, i.e. it makes scripts executable
>>>on posix platforms after they got copied to
>>>the build_dir.
>>>I'm looking for a discriminator that allows
>>>me to decide whether or not to run the code,
>>>depending on whether the distutils version
>>>requires it.
>>>It seems the version coming with python 2.2
>>>requires it, while python 2.3 and up don't.
>>>However, distutils.__version__ for python 2.2
>>>as well as python 2.3 are the same ('1.0.3') !
>>>Am I just looking in the wrong place ?
>>
>>No, there was no distutils release after 1.0.3.
>>Starting with Python 2.4, distutils seem to follow
>>the Python version number (even though I'm not really
>>sure who made that decision and what the motivation
>>was).
> 
> 
> That was me, and it seemed a sensible thing to do.  And not changing the
> distutils version number in Python 2.3 was a mistake, imo.

Indeed. The version number should change with each new release
being made available - whether as stand-alone version or
as part of a Python release.

I'm not sure whether using the Python version number is
correct, though. distutils is not developed at the same
pace as Python and a step from Python 2.3 to 2.4 is not
necessarily a major step in distutils development.

On the other hand, not bumping the version number
for API changes is bad as well.

I think we ought to keep things separate to make development
easier: if you make an API change in distutils, bump the
version number. That's a lot easier than remembering to
adjust the version string for each Python release.

What do you think ?

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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