[Distutils] Alternate static metadata PEP submission...

[David Cournapeau]

David Lyon wrote:
> It's just too hard to do and adds another layer of complexity to
> deal with.

Hence something like xml for a prototype and discussion - I did not
suggest to use xml for the end product package. I have as much love for
xml as the next python guy.

> I don't like nesting in configuration files. I tend to side with
> the configparser approach of not allowing nesting. More importantly
> than that, I don't believe that this particular use case gets
> complicated enough to require nesting.
>   

I think nested conditions for configurations is a must-have. Once you
have more than 2-3 variables, doing it like PEP 390 is not really
manageable. Particularly for C extensions, having many configurations is
quite common in my experience.

> Primary concern is using something that exists or will work
> on 'most' python versions. I'm not sure how many python 1.5
> thrillseekers still use 1.5 solely anymore. But if there are
> some, configparser shouldn't offend them.
>   

I don't think python 1.5 should be considered - I happen to contribute
to scons, which is a build tool in python, and supports all python
versions from 1.5.2: the 1.5 requirement is a real downside. You can't
use list comprehension, you need apply instead of f(*args, **kw), you
don't have subprocess for reliable process execution, and I am not even
talking about testing.

David