SETUP - Introducing "setuptools" to a project without risk

[Ilias Lazaridis]

If I understood things right, setuptools extends the functionality of
distutils

Thus replacing within a setup.py:

from distutils.core import setup

with

try:
from setuptools import setup
except ImportError:
from distutils.core import setup

should have the following behaviour:

* does not change distutils functionality on any system (with or
without setuptools installed)
* adds setuptools functionality on a system with setuptools installed

This is especially important to obtain the convenient "python setup.py
develop" command.

Can someone confirm that the addition is non-critical? (I've not asked
on the setuptools list in order to get a neutral view of users).

context: http://trac.edgewall.org/ticket/3743

..

 

[Ilias Lazaridis]

If I understood things right, setuptools extends the functionality of
distutils

Thus replacing within a setup.py:

from distutils.core import setup

with

try:
from setuptools import setup
except ImportError:
from distutils.core import setup

should have the following behaviour:

* does not change distutils functionality on any system (with or
without setuptools installed)
* adds setuptools functionality on a system with setuptools installed

This is especially important to obtain the convenient "python setup.py
develop" command.

Can someone confirm that the addition is non-critical? (I've not asked
on the setuptools list in order to get a neutral view of users).

context: http://trac.edgewall.org/ticket/3743

After some conversation with the setuptools developer I've understood
that I had wrong assumptions.

setuptools alters the behaviour of the original distutils commands,
thus the migration in such a way could cause problems.

As suggested by the trac-team, the following is the workaround to use
the setuptools develop command:

python -c "import setuptools; execfile('setup.py')" develop

-

I think setuptools should be non-intrusive. All existent distutils
commands should remain unaltered, exept if the user configures it
differently. This would simplify migration to setuptools, as the
project lead does not have to worry about potential problems.