[Biopython-dev] Introducing setup tools for building wheels

[Peter Cock]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Schmitt  Uwe (ID SIS)
<uwe.schmitt at id.ethz.ch> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I’m new to this list and only checked the email archive for
> november and december 2014. So this request might be obsolete.
>
> I modified BioPythons setup.py locally so that it uses
> setuptools  instead of distutils. This enables the creation
> of Python wheels which I prefer especially on Windows:
> wheels can be installed in virtualenvs which is not
> possible with the existing Windows installer.
>
> Is there some discussion about this ? I might contribute
> a pull request for my modifications.

Oh not the Python packaging rabbit hole :(

If you can modify setup.py to use setuptools WITHOUT
requiring it, so we don't need people to have setuptools
in order to install Biopython from source, that seems
worthwhile.

Presumably then we could upload wheels to PyPI as
well, allowing a pip install on Windows without needing
a compiler? That would please some people :)

Are your changes on a branch on a GitHub fork? That
would be the best way to show us what you have in mind.

> As this influences the build process: Do you use
> a continous integration server for testing this ?
>
> Kind Regards,
> Uwe.

We have TravisCI doing continuous integration:
https://travis-ci.org/biopython/biopython/builds

We have buildbot doing nightly builds cross platform:
http://testing.open-bio.org/biopython/tgrid

Peter