[Python-Dev] Raising objections (was: setuptools in the stdlib)

[Anthony Baxter]

I'm not sure how people would prefer this be handled. I don't think we 
need to have a PEP for it - I don't see PEPs for ctypes, elementtree, 
pysqlite or cProfile, either. 

I don't have a problem at all with setuptools going into the standard 
library. It adds a whole pile of extremely useful functionality 
(easy_install, in particular, is something that people have been 
asking for, constantly, for YEARS). Making it an additional install 
is just silly. 

Sure, it's possible that some people with extremely complicated 
distutils scripts may find they need to update them. But the 
alternative to that is complete paralysis - and I can't say that the 
current state of distutils is at all something to make Python happy. 

I started refactoring some of the ugliness out of the internals of 
distutils last year, but was completely stymied by the demand that no 
existing setup.py scripts be broken. This means that the people who 
are experts with the current code are fine, but everyone else has to 
pay the price.