[Distutils] Handling the binary dependency management problem

[Chris Barker - NOAA Federal]

On Dec 5, 2013, at 1:40 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I'm not sure how this would work - wheels don't seem to me to be
> appropriate for installing "external dependencies", but as I'm not
> 100% clear on what you mean by that term

One of the key features of conda is that it is not specifically tied
to python--it can manage any binary package for a system: this is a
key reason for it's existance -- continuum wants to support it's users
with one way to install all they stuff they need to do their work with
one cross-platform solution. This includes not just libraries that
python extensions require, but also non-python stuff like Fortran
compilers, other languages (like R), or who knows what?

As wheels and conda packages are both just archives, there's no reason
wheel couldn't grow that capability -- but I'm not at all sure we want
it to.

-Chris