[Distutils] (How) do setuptools/distribute/pip handle circular dependencies?

[Vinay Sajip]

Daniel Holth <dholth <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> I think it's necessary, but you would never hunt for "providing" packages as
> part of dependency resolution. You would have to install those manually first.

What makes you say that? I agree that, given a requirement "A", it doesn't make
sense to search the entire index metadata to see what provides "A". But as for
installing anything first - my distro package manager doesn't insist on
downloading and installing anything first; it tells me what will need to be
downloaded, installed and upgraded and lets me decide whether to go ahead. Why
should it be different for Python packages with interdependencies?

You haven't answered the question of *why* multi-valued Provides fields are
needed as a matter of practicality, nor how one would tackle the practical issues
of dependency/conflict resolution I mentioned if multi-valued Provides fields are
used completely freely.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip