provide 3rd party lib or not... philosophical check

[Paul Rubin]

Maurice LING <mauriceling at acm.org> writes:
> Just a philosophical check here. When a program is distributed, is it
> more appropriate to provide as much of the required 3rd party
> libraries, like SOAPpy, PLY etc etc, in the distribution itself or it
> is the installer's onus to get that part done?

If you absolutely need a 3rd party library, you have to make a careful
decision whether to include it or not.  Generally when in doubt, I'd
say include it.  But if you can, try to avoid needing external modules
and instead use what comes in the Python distro so your code is
otherwise self-contained.  That is the Python philosophy of "using the
batteries".  If writing an extra ten lines of code or sacrificing an
unimportant feature lets you do something with the Python library that
you could do in 1 line with a 3rd party module, then write the ten
lines or drop the feature, and get rid of the external dependency.  If
the module saves a big amount of work or does something important,
then use it, but if the library's usefulness extends to many other
developers, maybe that means you should start making the case to get
the 3rd party module included in future Python releases, assuming the
module's license permits it.