[Distutils] setuptools bug report: _get_unpatched() is way too clever (and also returns the wrong module)

[zooko]

Bug report #1:

_get_unpatched() returns a module from the system site-packages  
instead of the module from the PYTHONPATH which ought to have  
precedence, leading to setuptools-0.6c8 invoking setuptools-0.6a9 in  
the following stack trace:

PYTHONPATH="/home/buildslave/slave-tahoe/dapper/build/support/lib/ 
python2.4/site-packages" python ./setup.py develop --prefix="/home/ 
buildslave/slave-tahoe/dapper/build/support"
...
Running Nevow-0.9.18/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/ 
easy_install-rk83KQ/Nevow-0.9.18/egg-dist-tmp-nJ8GSy
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
   File "/home/buildslave/slave-tahoe/dapper/build/ 
setuptools-0.6c8.egg/setuptools/command/develop.py", line 102, in  
install_for_development
   File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/setuptools-0.6a9-py2.4.egg/ 
easy_install.py", line 518, in process_distribution

Full details:

https://dev.allmydata.com/buildbot-tahoe/builders/dapper/builds/1427/ 
steps/compile/logs/stdio


Bug report #2:

_get_unpatched() is way too clever for me to spend time trying to  
understand and debug right now:

def _get_unpatched(cls):
     """Protect against re-patching the distutils if reloaded

     Also ensures that no other distutils extension monkeypatched the  
distutils
     first.
     """

What the heck?  I don't want to think about that, so instead we're  
delisting Ubuntu Dapper as a supported platform, since it is the only  
one of our supported platforms on which we have this problem.


Generalized complaint:

There are a lot of things that are too clever in setuptools/ 
easy_install/eggs.  Cleverness makes it work in more situations,  
which is good, but it also means that it is harder to know when it  
will fail or to understand why it failed.

A simpler system that satisfied 90% of the use cases while failing in  
more obvious ways would be appreciated.  (Provided, of course, that  
those 90% of use cases include the ones that I really care about.)

See my earlier post which proposes such a simplification:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-March/078243.html


Bug report #3:

setuptools/easy_install/eggs needs a bug tracker.  (Also, of course,  
a buildbot and a rich suite of automated unit tests.)  Some of this  
message may have been inappropriate for distutils-sig, but what else  
am I going to do with this issue before I delist Dapper and forget  
all about it?

I would be willing to host a trac instance to serve as a wiki and  
issue tracker for setuptools, and a buildbot.  (But I don't want to  
have anything to do with subversion -- I much prefer darcs.)


Regards,

Zooko