CPAN functionality for python

[ssthapa at classes.cs.uchicago.edu]

Steve Holden <sholden at holdenweb.com> wrote:
>I think the most important thing is maintaining dependencies, which becomes
>trickier the more you change things. Assuming nobody ever breaks with
>backward compaitibility, then at least a module should be able to specifiy
>the minimum facility-level it requires in other modules. But then I don't
>want to change Python into Perl!

  I agree on this point, the format I had in mind is something a list for
each package formated something like this 
  [name, version, size, author, note, [[depend1, version], ...]]]
the size, author, and note would be optional, although the size and author
fields would be strongly encouraged.  With this format, the user could be
told what packages would need to be downloaded and the size of the total 
download  before starting the download.  CPAN has dependency information but
this is done in the course of installing the packages so users don't know
how long the install/downloads will take and how far along they are in 
the process.


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