setup.py is replaced by pyproject.toml

[cclauss]

https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/discussions/setup-py-deprecated

In README.rst, setup is a noun while set up is a verb.

In the removed setup.py...

Direct use of __import__() is also discouraged in favor of importlib.import_module().

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#import__

[timkpaine]

Do not delete this file

[cclauss]

Why not? Given the title of the PR?

[timkpaine]

The move to pyproject.toml was done in #154, this is the correct setup

[cclauss]

Please allow me to rephrase...

In what scenarios would the presence of this file be useful? If it was deleted, what would break?

[timkpaine]

There are situations and versions of setuptools which require setup.py to be present as a shim for the pyproject.toml, editable installations was one example that can require it. Support for editable installs (as an example) has been added in relatively new versions, but it's a very small burden to support older versions, especially since newer setuptools have their own issues (stricter version specifier parsing, distutils changes, msvc changes are three I've hit this year). So tl;dr to maximize our setuptools compatibility and avoid requiring a relatively new setuptools, the setup.py shim should stay.

[cclauss]

setuptools v61.0.0 (released in March 2022) added support for pyproject.toml and removed the need for setup.py. This means that any installation that needs setup.py is going to be unable to read the project dependencies and other settings that are now stored in pyproject.toml.

[cclauss]

Setuptools v64.0.0 (July 2022) was the first that allowed editable installs without a setup.py file.