[Distutils] Efficiently supporting multiple platforms in distribution packages

[Paul Moore]

On 27 October 2014 15:15, Paul Sokolovsky <pmiscml at gmail.com> wrote:
>> For a source distribution, you could play clever games in setup.py to
>> put the right file in place, with the right name. But that's messy and
>> it means that if you distribute wheels (not that there's much point in
>> doing so) you need separate wheels for 2.6-, 2.7 and 3.3+.
>
> Ok, so are there guidelines, best practices or at least example(s) how
> to do that? I pretty much would like to avoid inventing my own "clever
> games" to achieve that.

Personally, my guideline would be "don't do that". We're trying to
move away from having complex code in setup.py, to a more nearly
declarative solution. The above approach pretty much directly goes
against that. I posted code later in the same thread, but I still
don't think people should be doing it.

I see the issue you and Ethan have, though. It should be considered in
the context of Metadata 2.0 and things like that, so we make sure the
use case is covered.

Paul