And Now For Something Completely Similar !!!

[Phil Hunt]

In article <5l906p5vpj.fsf at eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
           guido at cnri.reston.va.us "Guido van Rossum" writes:
> kernr at mail.ncifcrf.gov (Robert Kern) writes:
> > On Wed, 01 Sep 1999 16:48:24 -0400, David Oppenheimer
> > <davidopp at megsinet.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > >2) Why isn't a module which has broad appeal like the Python Imaging Library
> > >included with the core Python 1.5.2 package?  
> > 
> > Release schedules, lean&mean-ness, not enough people needing to
> > manipulate images in Python, etc.
> 
> You said it.  The key issues here are independent developers and
> independent development schedules; I can't afford to repackage Python
> each time a new PIL comes out and I certainly don't want to have to
> wait until PIL is stable before releasing Python.

Indeed. And if you did the same thing for all libraries which use 
Python, the whole release process would rapidly become unmanageable.

How about a compromise? At the time of each Python release, take
a snapshot the latest versions of some Python packages, such as 
PIL, PySol, etc, and release them as a ``Python Goodies'' tarball.

This would:

1. make a convenient method where people could install lots of 
useful Python software in one go

2. make it obvious that the Goodies aren't part of the Python distro 
itself

3. allow people to see major programs written in Python -- this helps
to dispell the notion that Python is just a scripting language, and 
also makes available lots of source code, which might be useful to
look at if you are learning Python.

> Yeah...  This is actually in my plans for Python 1.6 (although I
> haven't started working on it honestly).

Any ideas on release date?

-- 
Phil Hunt - - - - - - - - -  philh at vision25.demon.co.uk
 - Linux will be 8 years old on 17th September! See: -
http://www.vision25.demon.co.uk/prog/linuxbirthday.html