[Distutils] Handling the binary dependency management problem

[Oscar Benjamin]

On 1 December 2013 04:15, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> conda has its own binary distribution format, using hash based
> dependencies. It's this mechanism which allows it to provide reliable
> cross platform binary dependency management, but it's also the same
> mechanism that prevents low impact security updates and
> interoperability with platform provided packages.

Nick can you provide a link to somewhere that explains the hash based
dependency thing please?

I've read the following...

http://docs.continuum.io/conda/
https://speakerdeck.com/teoliphant/packaging-and-deployment-with-conda
http://docs.continuum.io/anaconda/index.html
http://continuum.io/blog/new-advances-in-conda
http://continuum.io/blog/conda
http://docs.continuum.io/conda/build.html

...but I see no reference to hash-based dependencies.

In fact the only place I have seen a reference to hash-based
dependencies is your comment at the bottom of this github issue:
https://github.com/ContinuumIO/conda/issues/292

AFAICT conda/binstar are alternatives for pip/PyPI that happen to host
binaries for some packages that don't have binaries on PyPI. (conda
also provides a different - incompatible - take on virtualenvs but
that's not relevant to this proposal).


Oscar