[Distutils] EasyInstall --> distutils command + setuptools enhancements?

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 01:20 PM 6/8/2005 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote:
>Phillip J. Eby wrote:
>>>I'm still not clear.  Do you mean you intend people to do:
>>>
>>>   python setup.py install_depends
>>
>>That wasn't what I had in mind, although now that you mention it, it 
>>sounds kind of handy.  Not so much that people would type it directly, as 
>>that folks who don't want their users to have to install EasyInstall, 
>>could use it as part of their build process.
>>Hm.  That's actually a fantastic idea.  Thanks!  :)
>
>Um, okay ;)  It seems a little strange to me, but I suppose it does solve 
>the bootstrapping problem.  Well, not "solve", but for instance I can just 
>keep (or update) the code in Paste's setup.py to fetch setuptools and add 
>it to sys.path, though that code does feel a bit crufty, since it's never 
>going to be a very robust installation process.
>
>Where will the normal script go then?  Like, when you want to install a 
>package manually, and you don't have its setup.py file yet?  Will the 
>easy_install script just be a kind of metadata-less version of distutils' 
>setup()?

Well, it'd be replaced with a new 'package' module, that would contain a 
start script to run the various setuptools commands that represent the 
current 'easy_install' functionality. e.g.,:

     python -m package get SQLObject