[IPython-dev] easy_install ipython==dev

[Fernando Perez]

Hi Ville,

Ville Vainio wrote:
> Damn, it of course runs setup.py instead of eggsetup.py, which results
> in broken ipython scripts. Gotta explore it further, I think we need
> to roll setup and eggsetup into one script to make this work.

I'm moving this over to ipython-dev, where I think it belongs from now.  If 
you are going to try to integrate the normal setup.py with an eggs-aware one, 
it might be good to get feedback from others.

In particular, I've recently had very bad experiences with matplotlib's setup 
script pulling in setuptools unconditionally (just because 'import setuptools' 
succeeded), and then borking on install.  Robert Kern had some good 
suggestions on that front, so let's get some feedback on that first.

Basically, let's make sure that: setuptools does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, EVER, 
unless EXPLICITLY requested by the user at the command line.  ANY kind of 
silent action by setuptools in ipython is off-limits, period.  I've had way 
too many problems with that thing to let it anywhere near the ipython default 
behavior.

If it can't do the right thing via easyinstall, then it's setuptools' problem, 
not ours.

So, I'm all for supporting eggs as best we can, but as long as there is no way 
whatsoever that it can interfere with a plain distutils setup.

Cheers,

f