[Python-Dev] Sumo

[geremy condra]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/05/10 09:11, geremy condra wrote:
>>>
>>> Specialised distributions are another matter - I can see a "web stack"
>>> distribution comprising your TurboGears example (or should it be
>>> Django, or...?). Enthought essentially do that for a "Scientific
>>> Python" distribution. There could easily be others. But a general
>>> purpose "Sumo" distribution *on top of* the stdlib? I'm skeptical.
>>> (Personally, my "essential extras" are pywin32, cx_Oracle and that's
>>> about it - futures might make it if it doesn't get into the stdlib,
>>> but that's about all).
>>
>> I'm not clear, you seem to be arguing that there's a market for many
>> augmented python distributions but not one. Why not just have one
>> that includes the best from each domain?
>
> Because scientists, financial analysts, web designers, etc all have
> different needs.

My point is just that a web designer probably doesn't care if he's
got numpy, nor does a mathematician care if he has cherrypy
onboard. They only care when the tools they need aren't there,
which is where sumo can help.

> A targeted distribution like Scientific Python will include nearly all the
> stuff a scientist is likely to need, but a financial analyst or web designer
> would find it lacking.

Seems like the same point as above, I might be missing something.

> As Paul points out, the current size of the set of modules that are
> sufficiently general purpose and of high enough quality to qualify for
> python-dev's blessing, but wouldn't be suitable for inclusion in the normal
> standard library is fairly small. Particular when most developers are able
> to get sufficiently valuable modules from PyPI if they genuinely need them.

Seems like the point is not to focus on the general purpose ones, but rather
to include domain or task specific libraries, and libraries that are close to
(but not at) the level where they would be considered for inclusion.

Geremy Condra