[Catalog-sig] RFC: pypan - a Python package manager

[Laura Creighton]

This is what the PBF is planning to do with Python-in-a-Tie.  What packages
do you think belong in this release? I am trying to get packages sent
and tested on the Snake Farm, but it turns out that a fair number of
people simply don't care if their packages run on Solaris, HP or
other architectures right now.

Laura Creighton

Chris Barker wrote:
> 
> When I go to set up Python on a new machine (or upgrade). I have to go
> to a bunch of different web sites to get the packages I generally use,
> but for the most part, getting them to install has been pretty painless.
> Some I just copy, some I ./configure; make; make install, some I
> ./setup.py build, etc. On Windows, most of them come with installers.
> 
> If I could just get them from one web site I'd be a whole lot happier
> right there. If they all installed the same way that would be great too.
> 
> I'd like it even more if there was one installer that installed a
> "complete" system. There is no such thing, of course, but there are a
> limited number of packages that are in really general use (PIL, mxTools,
> Numeric, ...). All I would be wasting is some disk space and download
> bandwidth to download a pile of stuff in one fell swoop. If a particular
> set of packages where semi-officially known as CompletePython version
> 2.2 (or whatever), then when you wanted to distribute your code, you
> could just require CompletePython 2.2, and your users would have what
> they need.
> 
> I guess what I'm getting at is an expanded "batteries included"
> philosophy. It is great that the standard library has as much as it
> does, but it's not enough. Trying to fold all that other stuff into the
> standard library wouldn't work, of course, but if we managed to
> establish a list of commonly used third party packages, each maintained
> by different folks, but obtainable from one source, we'd have a great
> start.
> 
> I'm inspired by the old "Python on Linux" site (sorry, I can't remember
> who put that together). All I had to do was go there, download
> everything, and do an rpm -U *, and I had most of the stuff I needed. 
> 
> What it would take to get this going is someone to host the site, and a
> small group of folks to decide on a package list and start populating
> the site. As it grows, it would be useful to build the tools to automate
> the whole thing more, but we could get it started without any fancy
> technology.
> 
> I proposed something like this on c.l.p a while back (1yr or so??). I
> got surprisingly little support, and I just couldn't do it alone, so it
> died. We really need a core group of a few folks (ideally one with
> experience in building packages/installers on each of the major
> platforms).
> 
> What I envision is being able to go to www.completepython.org, click on
> version 2.2, click on Windows|OS_X|Linux and get a list of maybe 25-50
> packages, any of which I could click on, or a "Download All" button.
> That's it. Maybe if that package list grows to 100s (or thousands) it
> would require more organization, but let's cross that bridge when we
> come to it.
> 
> Yow! that rant got a lot longer than I had planned. Thanks for bearing
> with me, if you got this far.
> 
> -Chris
> 
> 
> -- 
> Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
> Oceanographer
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> 
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