Python package anthologies

[Alex Martelli]

Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote:
   ...
> Hmm... this leads me to think that maybe what would be a good
> idea is a small set of "anthology" distributions of a number
> of related packages, allowing a "canned" installation of a
> bunch of useful stuff at the same time.

Sure.  That's a reasonable alternative to the "Sumo Distribution"
approach best typified by Enthought's huge (and I believe Windows-only)
excellent one for scientific work with Python.

> That idea, turned into something more concrete, might be
> enough to fill in the gap between the standard distribution
> and the hundreds of discrete little packages which are scattered
> around on myriad web sites.

Sure, it is one way.  Other approaches include sumo distributions, and
others yet, such as Macpython's package-manager, Activestate's somewhat
cpan-like arrangement, etc, etc.

The problem I can see with "sets of a dozen interrelated packages" is:
what happens to users who need two of them, when the two packages use
and include the same extension... in two different versions...


Alex