@tgamblin @adamjstewart @alalazo @davydden

The proposal is that when Spack encounters depends_on('python@xxx', type='build'), that it will satisfy that dependency with the Python being used to run Spack (if the version of that Python matches the requested spec), rather than a Spack-built Python. This will eliminate some circular dependency problems we've been having, and also eliminate the need to build a whole Python, just as a build dependency for other packages.

I'd like to know... is this something we can agree on to get implemented? I would only work on it if we know it's something we want.