[Distutils] Merging buildout-versions in buildout

[Chris Withers]

Hi All,

My take on this, as the person who may or may not have offered to do the 
work...

After reading all the discussion, it sounds like the approach 
buildout-versions currently takes is the one that's going to give the 
most milleage:

- print the versions picked for any packages (as opposed to being 
specified by the buildout), in a format compatible with being pasted 
into buildout.cfg's versions section. This should happen by default.
(when *wouldn't* you want this to be shown?)

- have a key that points to a file where the text above is appended. 
It's up to the use whether this is buildout.cfg or not. For myself, if 
the buildout is tiny, I put a versions section at the end and point this 
option at buildout.cfg. Otherwise, I point it as a versions.cfg.

I had forgotten how important the interaction between the versions 
section and the extends mechanism was. I've also made great use of this.
While I like the idea of a versions format compatible with pip*, it 
sounds like that would kill off the extends interaction, which would be bad.

I'll note that there appears to be no contention over the optional 
python-version key to stop you accidentally running a buildout with the 
wrong python.

cheers,

Chris

* I have to admit to currently thinking hard about migrating away from 
buildout; its development has been hampered by people with not enough 
time trying to solve hard problems, the dropping of Windows support 
(yeah, I hate windows too, but its still used enough that I need to 
support it, unfortunately I'm not competent enough to help with 
development *of* buildout on Windows). That said, I don't know that 
pip/virtualenv would be any better.

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