[Distutils] DistUtils requirements

[Konrad Hinsen]

Hi everybody,

it's nice to see this SIG starting work; about a year ago, I proposed
something similar in c.l.p and there was little interest and even less
willingness to invest time into such a project. And then I didn't have
enough time, meaning I never did anything that could be called an
implementation. However, I did have a rather clear idea of what I
wanted, with a few question marks. Many of the features I had in mind
are already listed on Greg's requirements list, so I'll restrict
myself to what's missing.

The model I wanted to imitate was RPM, which offers three features
that are not on the current requirements list:

- Version control, i.e. the possibility to update installed packages
  easily with some sanity checks (no "downgrade" unless explicitly
  requested)

- Dependence checking. This is particularly important for fine-grained
  packages (i.e. many small interdependent packages that are maintained
  independently), as it makes sure that everything works well together.

- Package installation via FTP/HTTP from a server. That may seem like
  a minor convenience, but once you realize how many system administrators
  don't know how to use FTP, it gains importance...


And now for the question marks:

- Compilation on non-Unix platforms. I couldn't find out whether this is
  doable at all in an automatic way on all platforms; Windows compilers
  in particular seem to be oriented towards interactive code development
  rather than batch-mode compilation.

- Dependence checking and configuration for non-Python libraries.
  For example, finding out whether Tk is installed and how to
  link with it.


Does Perl packaging deal with any of these points, and if yes, how?

Konrad.
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Konrad Hinsen                            | E-Mail: hinsen@cnrs-orleans.fr
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