CPAN functionality for python

[Bruce Sass]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Sean Reifschneider wrote:
<...>
> My thoughts on that are that it's a job that's probably going to be
> something subject largely to being handed off to appropriate scripts
> based on the platform and some user input (for example, a user may
> prefer to have packages they download installed in ~/lib/python1.5,
> instead of /usr/lib/python1.5).
>
> Ideally though, the tool should be able to deal with allowing the user
> to select their preferred distribution media.  I'd prefer to see an ix86
> RedHat 7.0 RPM, a SRPM, and then would fall back to a distutils file or
> tar file.

Do you mean:

A tool that would download a python pkg, then pass it onto scripts
that could turn it into a .deb, .rpm (bunch of flavours), tarball,
etc., then install it.

or

A tool that would download pre-packaged distro specific pkgs.


Regarding the first... I like this because users will always get an
installable package that fits into their system, and every system can
have packages in their native format - something you can't expect if
developers are doing the distro specific packaging and arbitrary
individuals are filling in the rest.  I realize the distros will
probably start auto-building once python modules are available in a
standard format, but users should also have the ability to do the
packaging with a minimum of hoops to jump through.


As for the second... it seems like an awful waste of archive space to
have the same code in many different formats, just because some want
to put stuff in /usr/share and others in /usr/lib, etc.


Maybe I've just been spoiled by the Debian packaging system and tools,
but tarballs/zips and third-party packages are definately second
class, I would much rather have the packages created on the fly then
installed by a script (probably provided by a Debian developer).

I suppose you could replace "Debian" with RH, Mandrake, Microsoft, ...
whatever your fav distro is.


- Bruce