[Distutils] Ensuring source availability for PyPI entries / PEP: Build system abstraction for pip/conda etc

[Nick Coghlan]

On 10 February 2016 at 22:21, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> Wait. You are missing the point that the setup.py interface
> already does work, so no extra effort is needed. All that's
> needed is some documentation of what's currently being used,
> so that other tools can support the interface going forward.

One of the key points of the proposal is to be able to write *one*
setuptools/distutils shim, and then never having to write another one,
regardless of how many build systems people come up with [1].

The build system abstraction PEP itself comes from figuring out what
pip needs (i.e. the "minimal interface" you're after), and documenting
that specifically, without the distracting noise that comes from
documenting it in terms of "how pip calls setup.py" (which includes
things like passing "--single-version-externally-managed", which only
makes sense in the context of setuptools originally being designed to
serve the needs of the Chandler project).

Cheers,
Nick.

[1] If we never end up with a build system called "rennet", I am going
to be most disappointed :)

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia