On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 10:07 AM Steven D'Aprano
Some of the Linux distros already split the stdlib into pieces. This is a real pain, especially for beginners. The process changes from:
$ dnf install python3 # or apt-get or whatever package manager you use
and everything documented at python.org Just Works straight out of the box, to a much more annoying process:
$ dnf install python3
and then you have mysterious ImportErrors because some modules aren't installed, and you have to try to work out how to install them, and that's not an easy task:
$ dnf search python3 | wc -l 3511
On Debian, "apt install python3" gives you everything in the standard library, but you can "apt install python3-minimal" to get just part of it for a smaller installation with fewer dependencies. I believe this is the correct way to do things - the most obvious thing will indeed Just Work. If there are standard library modules that aren't installed, I think they get replaced with stubs, to ensure that the ImportErrors you get are at least informative. No idea what the Fedora folks do there. In any case, though, this kind of breaking up of the stdlib is carefully managed by the distribution. You don't get dependency hell because the packages are all synchronized. I do NOT want any sort of system where the stdlib can be updated on a separate schedule to the binary, because then you'd need exactly what Steven said with lots of version number requirements. ChrisA