@pradyunsg I'm considering adding the ability to use build/installer as an alternative to pip in Spack. The first step is bootstrapping. How would I install installer without the presence of pip/installer/build/flit/setuptools/distutils/etc?

For pip, we use the advice in https://discuss.python.org/t/bootstrapping-a-specific-version-of-pip/12306 (using the wheel to install itself). Would something similar be possible with installer?