[Distutils] waf can be used to compile Python extension modules

[Daniel Holth]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21 March 2014 17:56, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You do need to keep a mechanism to indicate & install build dependencies.
>
> Do we have that at the moment? Metadata 2.0 covers that with
> build_requires. At the moment setup_requires covers it, but I don't
> know if/how that works (AIUI, setup_requires is processed by
> setuptools, so it's somewhat outside of the normal pip mechanisms).
>
> But yes, there needs to be some accessible data that tells pip
> "install these packages before trying to run setup.py". Again, though,
> that's only needed for "pip wheel" or for the
> install-direct-from-source cases that may not even be expected to work
> in the new metabuild system...
>
> Paul

We will always need the Gentoo-model "compiled-on-demand" style of installation.