CPAN functionality for python - requirements

[Bruce Sass]

On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Sean Reifschneider wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 02:49:40AM -0700, Bruce Sass wrote:
> >Even if the RPM was made by someone who didn't have a clue?
>
> Yes, because it's easier to remove an RPM from somone who doesn't have a
> clue than a .tar file from somone who doesn't have a clue.

I'm a little more careful.  I only install DEBs from Debian or a
trusted packager (usually unofficial pkgs from a Debian developer),
third party DEBs and tarballs get manually unpacked and inspected.

Installing a third-party DEB or RPM is worse than doing
"cd / ; tar xzf..." with that tarball you found at
mess-with-your-system.com - at least the tarball is not going to run
scripts as root on you system!

> >Wouldn't it be better to have a standard way to convert a Python
> >package into an RPM, that way any packaging problems will be seen by
> >everyone and the fix will be fast.
>
> The thing about automated systems is that they often fail in particularly
> spetacular ways.  If that happens an human intervention is required, then
> the archive network should be able to handle it, without requiring that
> distutils be fixed, then handed off to the author of the package to make
> a new release from.


That sounds much better than the alternatives to me; everything is
likely to fail at some point, when it comes to the dull task of
packaging software... I'll go with the well defined automated process
'cause it doesn't get tired and make mistakes.

The archive network is not going to fix anything, it may dump packages
that are getting complaints, but that should - must - require human
intervention.

> >Huh, there are tools and standards.
> >Isn't /usr/shar/doc/package the FHS place for general package specific
>
> Where are the tools for turning doc-strings into HTML, and how are the
> links between doc packages handled?  What is the markup format for the
> doc strings?
>
> We spent quite a while discussing the sad state of the documentation at our
> last pythoneers meeting.  Mark Lutz was shocked that people would actually
> use javadoc, but they do seem to simply becuase it was available and was
> "good enough".
>
> We are missing similar functionality.

Oh, ok.  I though the reference was to READMEs, .html files, etc.

Doc strings are a great replacement for bunches of "rem" statements,
but as program documentation...
I don't want my programs cluttered up with user level documentation.

Literate programming is interesting.


- Bruce