[Distutils] pip install --upgrade bug on python3.x

[PJ Eby]

On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8 January 2013 22:29, Christian Tismer <tismer at stackless.com> wrote:
>> So why is it so difficult to just use "except ValueError as e"  ?
>>
>> Am I missing the point, or would it not just work with python 2.7 and up?
>
> The problem is that distribute supports Python 2.4 and up. Until they
> drop support for at least 2.4 and 2.5, they don't stand a chance of
> moving away from 2to3 to a single-source model (and even then, it's a
> lot of work for little benefit so they may not want to take that step
> anyway). It's the 2to3 process that's the issue here.

In this particular bit of code, though, they could use "except
ValueError:" and "e = sys.exc_info()[1]".  I mean, it's not
*impossible* to span more Python versions than just 2.7+.  Heck, "six"
supports 2.4+, and if I ever get far enough on my todo list that I
touch setuptools again, I'll probably use it.  ;-)