diff --git a/pytools/version.py b/pytools/version.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..647ae5d87b274cf65b17ecbdfe8c300ceb2f5bb9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pytools/version.py
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+VERSION = (2017, 3)
+VERSION_STATUS = ""
+VERSION_TEXT = ".".join(str(x) for x in VERSION) + VERSION_STATUS
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 778fab61d84a878d8d214e90cc94d820c42a26f4..ce1838c6a50a7af833f9d2c6baf6235d03f1deb1 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -3,8 +3,17 @@
 
 from setuptools import setup
 
+ver_dic = {}
+version_file = open("pytools/version.py")
+try:
+    version_file_contents = version_file.read()
+finally:
+    version_file.close()
+
+exec(compile(version_file_contents, "pytools/version.py", 'exec'), ver_dic)
+
 setup(name="pytools",
-      version="2017.3",
+      version=ver_dic["VERSION_TEXT"],
       description="A collection of tools for Python",
       long_description="""
       Pytools is a big bag of things that are "missing" from the Python standard