[Distutils] setup.cfg new format proposal

[P.J. Eby]

At 12:28 AM 9/12/2009 +0200, Tarek Ziadé wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Jim Fulton <jim at zope.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The second motivation is : why do I need to run some code to get the
> >> metadata fields ?
> >
> > Turning the config file into code means you'd be running code. :)
>
>Well that's very different. You will be running a function that is
>provided in the stdlib,
>in a vanilla Python, and that will be restricted to string comparisons
>basically.
>
>In other words, it is more likely to be a translation of setup.cfg
>into a "localized"
>setup.cfg.

But in that case, why not just have a 100% static format without any 
dynamic content whatsoever, and run a "configure.py" or some such 
(perhaps "distconfig.py") to generate it?  Since it's not setup.py, 
there are no backward compatibility issues, and we can actually get 
the full benefit of environment-specific configuration (e.g. library 
locations, etc.).