When Python *Eggs* better than Python *distutils*?? What's Eggs?

[Maurice LING]

Xavier Morel wrote:

> seberino at spawar.navy.mil wrote:
> 
>> So basically Python Eggs precompiles and compresses
>> binaries for you so you just have to load it to run
>> your app?
>>
> 
> Nah, Eggs is a packaging system, what you don't have to do is 
> compile/configure, because the packaging does that for you. It also 
> handles things like pre-required packages (the packages that this 
> package uses), even though that doesn't always work atm.
> 
> If you ever used a debian-based linux system, think of Eggs as a 
> Python-specific apt-get.
> 
> The most advanced kind of language-specific installer atm is the Ruby 
> Gems packaging and distribution system (http://docs.rubygems.org/), go 
> check it for more insight of what Eggs wants to be (and I hope it'll 
> evolve to be as good as gems) (and the install software should be named 
> eggs or hatch, not easy_install, ugly).

I think this is one very specific area that one BIG community-wide 
concerted effort is better than a few smaller ones. Is there any chance 
of better coordination in this area?

maurice