[bug#46848] Questions regarding Python packaging

[Lars-Dominik Braun]

Hi Hartmut,

> What should be the use of having a package without pip? Anything else 
> than saving a few KB?
saving some space and unvendoring components that we also have separate
packages for. (As I understand it, ensurepip, which installs both pip and
setuptools, is merely a convenience tool if you install Python from
source yourself – not for distributions.)

> AFAIK this might not be true if other build systems not using setuptools 
> at all might show up. And isn't this the main reason for all your work?
No, try

        git clone https://github.com/pypa/pep517.git
        cd pep517
        pip wheel --use-pep517 -v .

which has no setup.py and uses flit instead. pip can build it, because
it supports PEP 517-based builds. As I said, if we decide to keep it
bundled with our python package, there’s no good reason to choose
pypa-build.

Cheers,
Lars