Not enough Python library development [was PEP scepticism]

[Paul Prescod]

Andrew Kuchling wrote:
> 
> Roman Suzi <rnd at onego.ru> writes:
> > CPyAN is much more complex task, because there are:
> >
> > - security considerations
> > - integration with distutils
> > - probably, one day python will allow the "import" shown above
> >   (I even think it is already possible)
> > - dependency resolution framework...
> 
> Not necessarily.  An annoying habit of the Python community is to
> write an initial requirement list that's so forbiddingly long that
> everyone is frightened away and nothing is ever implemented.  But you
> don't have to implement everything to have something useful.  Case in
> point: Parnassus, which does exactly 0 of the above 4 items, yet it's
> definitely not useless.

I agree. We've decided at ActiveState to try and push the penny ahead a
few inches by the O'Reilly Open Source conference. We're working on a
minimalist repository that can evolve into the repository of our dreams.
It isn't a trivial job but we can at least leverage some of our existing
security infrastructure, proficiency with Zope, etc. One good example of
what our web team has put together is here:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Mail

I find these archives to be better than other Python archives available
on the Web. Consider this feature:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Leaders/python-dev/

We hope to do the same thing with module repositories. We'd also like to
integrate some of the security, commenting, rating and reviewing
features from the Python cookbook:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python

But this is mostly a spare-time project because it is not product -- so
I don't want to lift expectations too high...we're doing what we can do
just like any other contributors to open source. Nevertheless, I have
high hopes that we can plant the seeds and the community will help us
harvest.

I'm holding a BOF on the topic at the O'Reilly conference (just like at
the last Python conference) and we'll share our progress and see what
other people are up to.
-- 
Take a recipe. Leave a recipe.  
Python Cookbook!  http://www.ActiveState.com/pythoncookbook