[Distutils] [Python-Dev] The Breaking of distutils and PyPI for Python 3000?

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> While not quite to the same scale as the 2 to 3 transition, this problem 
> seems like one that would generally already exist.  If one writes code 
> that uses newer 2.4/2.5 features (say decorators for example,) it won't 
> build/run on 2.3 or earlier installs.  How have people been handling 
> that sort of situation?  Is it only by not using the newer features or 
> is there some situation  I'm just not seeing in a brief review of a few 
> projects pages on PyPI where there is only one source tarball?

I think packages have taken all sorts of responses to this issue.
Some will list the minimum required Python version in their README,
some might put a test in setup.py that aborts installation if the
Python version is too old, some may just install and let the user
find out at runtime.

Typically, packages try to support all the Python versions that their
users still use. If a user of an older Python version comes along,
they'll just need to fetch the older release (which hopefully is
still online, or can be extracted from the source repository).

Regards,
Martin