[Distutils] install_recommends proposal

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 10:38 PM 9/26/2007 +0200, Martijn Faassen wrote:
>An alternative would be to expand the syntax of install_requires and
>extra_require to allow the recommended version number hint. Something
>like this:
>
>install_requires = [
>     'foo (1.2.1)',
>     'bar >= 1.3 (1.3.2)',
>    ]
>
>Installation tools are free to ignore the latter number and just install
>something that fits the basic requirement:
>
>install_requires = [
>    'foo',
>    'bar >= 1.3',
>]
>
>But an installation could be taught to take this into account and get
>those versions, and do the equivalent of this:
>
>install_requires = [
>     'foo == 1.2.1',
>     'bar == 1.3.2',
>    ]
>
>The install tool could choose in the case of conflicting version numbers
>to pick the one in the outer packages. So, if foo depends on bar, and
>bar says it would prefer qux 1.3, while foo actually prefers 1.3.2, foo
>would trump bar.

Note that the previous proposal for having a way to specify "or'ed" 
conditions would allow this, but it isn't going to happen until I get 
an 0.6 final out so I can focus on refactoring and new features in 0.7.