[Python-Dev] First alpha release of Python 1.6

[Greg Ward]

On 28 March 2000, Guido van Rossum said:
> I'm hoping to release a first, rough alpha of Python 1.6 by April 1st
> (no joke!).
> 
> Not everything needs to be finished by then, but I hope to have the
> current versions of distutil, expat, and sre in there.

We just need to do a bit of CVS trickery to put Distutils under the
Python tree.  I'd *like* for Distutils to have its own CVS existence at
least until 1.6 is released, but it's not essential.

Two of the big Distutils to-do items that I enumerated at IPC8 have been
knocked off: the "dist" command has been completely redone (and renamed
"sdist", for "source distribution"), as has the "install" command.

The really major to-do items left for Distutils are:

  * implement the "bdist" command with enough marbles to generate RPMs
    and some sort of Windows installer (Wise?); Solaris packages,
    Debian packages, and something for the Mac would be nice too.

  * documentation (started, but only just)

And there are some almost-as-important items:

  * Mac OS support; this has been started, at least for the
    unfashionable and clunky sounding MPW compiler; CodeWarrior
    support (via AppleEvents, I think) would be nice

  * test suite -- at least the fundamental Distutils marbles should get
    a good exercise; it would also be nice to put together a bunch
    of toy module distributions and make sure that "build" and "install"
    on them do the right things... all automatically, of course!

  * reduce number of tracebacks: right now, certain errors in the setup
    script or on the command line can result in a traceback, when
    they should just result in SystemExit with "error in setup script:
    ..." or "error on command line: ..."

  * fold in Finn Bock's JPython compat. patch

  * fold in Michael Muller's "pkginfo" patch

  * finish and fold in my Python 1.5.1 compat. patch (only necessary
    as long as Distutils has a life of its own, outside Python)

Well, I'd better get cracking ... Guido, we can do the CVS thing any
time; I guess I'll mosey on downstairs.

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward - software developer                    gward@cnri.reston.va.us
Corporation for National Research Initiatives    
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