On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Andrew Straw <straw...@astraw.com> wrote:
> Maybe if you need a level of backward compatibility, (and really, to > gain a decent audience for this idea, I think you do need some level of > backward compatibility) the new tool could emit setup.py files for > consumption by distutils as a fallback plan. When I say I don't care about backward compatibility, it was in the context of numpy. If I wanted to do a better tool for python, I would have done things differently. > Furthermore, if you're not > opposed to dropping in your own distutils monkeypatches, like lots of > other packages, you probably could do anything you wanted. For example, > bypassing the build_ext command and injecting the built products into > the distutils install command. you've just described the scons command in numpy.distutils :) > This reminds of Linus' criticism of svn: its goal is to be a better cvs. > Said dripping with incredulity due to his perception of the fatal flaws > of CVS. Well, I think (parts of) setuptools are better than distutils, > but by being distutils+, it will always share the same flawed genetic > material... We should have a Linus Torvald : very few people are capable of building a new tool which blows away the whole field, in two weeks :) Also, svn, for all its flaws, was at least based on concepts which were widely shared among the people working on the problem, whereas distutils isn't (building things from a DAG is known for decades). David _______________________________________________ Numpy-discussion mailing list Numpy-discussion@scipy.org http://projects.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion