[Distutils] PEP439 and backward compat / easy_install / distlib

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 26 Mar, 2013, at 16:21, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:

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> On 03/26/2013 05:28 AM, Ronald Oussoren wrote:
>> 
>> On 25 Mar, 2013, at 19:16, PJ Eby <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Also, as far as detecting the need for setuptools, I think that can
>>> be done just by noticing whether the PKG-INFO included in an sdist
>>> is metadata 2.0 or not.  If it is, then setuptools should be
>>> explicitly declared as a build-time dependency, otherwise it's not
>>> needed.  If it's an older metadata version, then you probably need
>>> setuptools.
>> 
>> Is it even necessary to automaticly install setuptools?
>> Setuptools-using package are supposed to use  ez_setup.py, or
>> distribute_setup.py for distribute, to ensure that the setuptools
>> package is available during setup.
> 
> No, they are not.  That usage was for bootstrapping in an era when
> setuptools was not widely presetn.  Most packages have *removed* those
> files today.

I didn't know that, all my project still include the bootstrap code to make it easier to install them in a fresh build of python.  The distribute docs still mention that you should use distribute_setup.py (their version of ez_setup.py) in your project.

Ronald