Re: python 3.7 problems

[nia <nia%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 10:10:34AM +0200, Thomas Klausner wrote:
> So a recent update of py-setuptools_scm introduced a cyclic dependency
> for python 3.7 because it needs the importlib-metadata module, but
> that needs py-setuptools_scm to build.
> 
> The missing dependency now leads to heavy fallout for python 3.7 modules, a sample:

My experiences fighting py-cryptography basically led me to
believe we should be abstracting away the dependency handling
for Python.

i.e. we should use versioned_dependencies.mk for everything.

Handling Python dependencies directly using DEPENDS has proven too
error-prone - how many developers have managed to break the
tree with incorrect python dependencies? I certainly have.

Wider use of versioned_dependencies.mk would easily allow us
to substitute an older version of a specific Python library
to work around upstreams breaking things.