[Distutils] sandbox trying to run things before they're installed...again?

[Ben Bangert]

On Mar 7, 2006, at 11:55 AM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:

> No; the setup script has to be run in order to find out what the  
> dependencies are.
>
> Note that as a general rule, distutils setup scripts shouldn't  
> import the code they're trying to install.  It tends to lead to  
> problems on users' machines that don't show up on the developer's  
> machine.

So.... the setup script runs the code to see what the dependencies  
are, the code dies a horrid death because of course the dependency  
has yet to be installed... thus everything dies and nothing is  
installed. Isn't that a bit of a problem?

I mean, the code can't be run, because the dependency has yet to be  
installed.... which means the user is left manually installing  
dependencies because setuptools refuses to install the package before  
trying to run code from it.

Shouldn't setuptools see that the install is failing because the  
dependency needs to be installed, and install the dependency?

Thanks,
Ben