Features for a Python package manager?

[Robert Kern]

Mike Meyer wrote:
> Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at iinet.net.au> writes:
> 
> 
>>I don't know enough about Portage to answer that question. I do know
>>any package manager which made it into the standard distribution would
>>need to work for at least the big three platforms (Windows/Mac/*nix) :)
> 
> 
> Being written in python - and hopefully integrated into Distutils -
> why shouldn't it work on any platform that Python worked on?

Assumptions about directory structures, and the like. IIRC, Portage was 
written for the Gentoo project, so it could assume that it was 
installing stuff to a Gentoo system. Package management systems have a 
distressing habit of infecting their *architecture* with these 
assumptions. It makes adapting them difficult.

Also, Portage needs to execute subprocesses, something which is 
notoriously platform dependent. 2.4's subprocess module should probably 
be used here, but I don't think Portage does, yet. OTOH, it's Gentoo, so 
it wouldn't surprise me, either.  :-)

-- 
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter