[Distutils] Multi-version import support for wheel files

[PJ Eby]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal
<chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
> Just to add a bit more "FUD" ;-)
> ....
> i.e. if a user has only needs one version of a given package
> installed, lets not have much overhead there to support that, and
> let's not require much run-time support at all.

Nick's proposal does that.  What I mean by FUD in this context is that
a lot of the thread is discussing fears that *are* relevant to
setuptools, but *not* to Nick's proposal.

It doesn't mean I think anyone's use cases or needs are irrelevant or
dumb; I'm just saying that a lack of understanding of Nick's proposal
is causing people to equate it with problems in setuptools that relate
to *default* versions, not to making alternate versions available.

Nick's proposal doesn't involve any weirdness for packages that aren't
*already* using pkg_resources or which require the use of a
non-default version.  Under his proposal, default versions don't
behave any differently than stock Python and pip, and nobody "pays"
any cost for something they're not actually using.  If you never need
a non-default version, his proposal affects nothing on that system.