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

[Paul Moore]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 22:39:46 +0200, fidelman at world.std.com (Miles R.
Fidelman) wrote:

>Steve Holden (sholden at holdenweb.com) wrote:
>: Aahz Maruch wrote:
>: > 
>: Longer term, mirroring is going to be essential if Python is to
>: dominate the world effectively.  It certainly would have helped in
>: the current situation.
>
>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.

And I know exactly where all the "bits" go on install, because it's
standardised, and every module conforms.

The same needs to be true of Python modules. I have an intense dislike
of packages which are a pain to build from sources, and which come
with mysterious binary installers which could, and often do, scatter
things everywhere. Keep out of my registry, and don't put things in my
SYSTEM(32) directory! Even if you uninstall cleanly, that's not
enough...

This is close to being the killer distinction between Python and Perl
for me...

Paul.