[Distutils] Re: CPAN functionality for python

[Robin Dunn]

> >
> > But practicality beats purity: if a large fraction of users,
> > especially newbie users, are using a specific platform, it makes a lot
> > of sense to provide pre-packaged distributions for them!  E.g. Windows
> > installers, Red Hat RPMs.  (So far my experience with Windows
> > installers is much more positive than with RPMs though -- RPMs forever
> > seem to depend on some version of some other RPM that you don't have.)
> >
> > --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
>
> Isn't this the point of distutils --bdist functionality? The
> catalog should provide download capability of any binary format
> supported byu distutils. It can either be done on the fly at
> request time, or batched periodically depending on the space
> availability of the catalog providing site.
>

That would work for pure python packages, but not for any that contains an
extension module.  They would still have to be built on the target platform
and then the taget package format can be built with --bdist.

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com       Java give you jitters?
http://wxPython.org      Relax with wxPython!