bootstrapping

I have a project which has a C extension which requires numpy. Ideally, I'd like whoever downloads my project to just be able to run python setup.py install or use one call to pip . The problem I have is that in my setup.py I need to import numpy to get the location of the headers, but I'd like numpy to be just a regular requirement in install_requires so that it will automatically be downloaded from the Python Package Index. Here is a sample of what I'm trying to do: from setuptools import setup, Extension import numpy as np ext_modules = [Extension('vme', ['vme.c'], extra_link_args=['-lvme']

I keep seeing "bootstrapping" mentioned in discussions of application development. It seems both widespread and important, but I've yet to come across even a poor explanation of what bootstrapping actually is; rather, it seems as though everyone is just supposed to know what it means. I don't, though. Near as I can figure, it has something to do with initialization tasks required of an application upon launch, but I could be completely wrong about that. Can anyone help me to understand this idea? "Bootstrapping" comes from the term "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps." That much you

I've heard of the idea of bootstrapping a language, that is, writing a compiler/interpreter for the language in itself. I was wondering how this could be accomplished and looked around a bit, and saw someone say that it could only be done by either writing an initial compiler in a different language. hand-coding an initial compiler in Assembly, which seems like a special case of the first To me, neither of these seem to actually be bootstrapping a language in the sense that they both require outside support. Is there a way to actually write a compiler in its own language? Derek Park Is there a