[Distutils] Future of setuptools and buildout

[Chris Barker]

>
> Which brings us to a question that I'm meaning to ask for a while.
>
> It looks like we're close to removing all mentions of setuptools in pip.
> When this happens, it looks like pressure is going to start to mount on
> setuptools to drop the ability to install packages and limit itself on
> being just a build tool.
>
>
Yes, please!

I argued  a while back for a setuptools-lite -- it would do all the things
setuptools does that we think it _should_ do, and not do any of the others
-- like it wouldn't easy-install anything EVER.

most likely it would be a fork of the setuptools code with a bunch of stuff
disabled. Or maybe even a setting in setuptools itself:

import setuptools
setuptools.disable_legacy

from setuptools import setup, find_packages, ...

Why????

Folks rely on the various "features" of setuptools, some important ones
like buildout. So it's going to be a long time before we can deprecate all
that in setuptools itself.

But we're trying for a future with better separation of concerns --
building, installing, packaging, run-time management.

But as it stands now, people kind of HAVE to use setuptools to get desired
build behaviour, but then their users an accidentally invoke features they
don't want -- to teh point where pip goes in and monkey patches the darn
thing.

IF there were a setuptools_lite, user could simply do:

import setuptools_lite as setuptools

and they'd instantly get an error if they were using depreciated features,
and their end users would never accidently easy install stuff :-)

Anyway, this seem like a path forward, without having to wait for the
future fabulous pluggable build system .....

-Chris

-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
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Chris.Barker at noaa.gov
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