Python Light Revisted?

[skip at pobox.com]

    Ramza> The goal, build python(mainly for win32) so that the ENTIRE
    Ramza> install is maybe less than 5MBs and includes possibly a GUI
    Ramza> library, possibly TwistedMatrix, possibly install from just
    Ramza> unzipping an archive like applications such as Eclipse.

    ...

    Ramza> Why?  For example, I don't need an XML-RPC library, or zip
    Ramza> library, or the other libraries.

Let's suppose I decided to take your bait and build a python-lite
distribution (fyi, I'm not biting).  How would I know what to remove and
what to retain?  Some choices would be simple.  If I was targeting Win32 I
could clearly leave out Mac- or Unix-Specific stuff.  I could probably
dispense with the docs on the premise that you could read them online.  How
would I decide whether to keep or toss xmlrpclib or zipfile?  If I keep
xmlrpclib should I also keep SimpleXMLRPCServer?  What about unicodedata
(it's a biggie)?

What about compatibility?  If someone installs the python-lite distro then
downloads, let's say, Tailor, a version control converter.  What are the
chances that it will croak with an ImportError?  Put another way, are you
really willing to trade off a few megs of disk space against almost certain
breakage at some point in the near future?

I can understand that distributions for some platforms (PalmOS, OS/2, Amiga,
Jython) might contain fewer modules simply because not everything has been
ported to them, but given the cost of disk space today I don't understand
why a distribution for a mainstream platform should be hobbled.

Skip