[Distutils] Alternate static metadata PEP submission...

[David Lyon]

On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:48:00 +0900, David Cournapeau
<david at ar.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp> wrote:
> Let's take a common case: using cython/pyrex to accelerate some code,
> but you still want people to be able to use your package without a C
> compiler (bzr, cython are examples of such packages).

I believe that's possible through the [postinstall] section..

> If we had a way to define variables as in .cabal files, this could be
> used to control the build from 'outside'.

Any key can be variable:

[postinstall]
variable_value = 10

Outside programs can 'read' and 'write' and pass values via this
setup.info file during build time. That is the whole point.

Simply change the setup.info file.

> For me, the goal of having static
> metadata should be easier interoperation between different tools, and as
> such the format should be rich enough to describe entirely common cases.

I totally agree.

> You could then have a distutils2-debianize tool which would read this
> file and produce a .deb, another tool for eggs, windows installers,
> etc... or you could use the parsed file description to control the build
> from a real build tool system like waf or scons. That's the kind of
> things I want to be able to do and are so painful right now with
distutils.

I'm not really addressing the developer build side at the moment because
my experience with it is less.

What I feel that I have more knowledge with is the install side and
any build/configuration that might take place there.

Thanks for the discussion - very informative.

David