Python equivalent of CPAN (Was: ANY NEWS ON THE STARSHIP?)

[Miles R. Fidelman]

Paul Moore (paul.moore at uk.origin-it.com) wrote:
: On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 22:39:46 +0200, fidelman at world.std.com (Miles R.
: Fidelman) wrote:

: >Longer term, something like CPAN is going to be needed.

: Complete with some form of standardised build process for modules, and
: a standard installation structure. On Perl, I always build from source
: - it's trivial, just perl Makefile.PL, nmake, nmake test, nmake 
: install.
<snip>
: This is close to being the killer distinction between Python and Perl
: for me...

it's even easier than that, if you have the cpan module installed:
perl -MCPAN -e shell

and then:
install <module name>

gets, makes, tests, and installs the module, and any missing modules that
it depends on.  The cpan module even checks and updates itself!

I don't know how much easier it can get.  This really is the killer
distinction. (note: I don't even like perl that much as a language - I
prefer to do my web programming in PHP - but as a collection of
easy-to-find and easy-to-install facilities, perl and cpan beat everything
else out there by a wide margin)