[Distutils] Python people want CPAN and how the latter came about

[Sridhar Ratnakumar]

On 12/23/2009 1:19 PM, Sridhar Ratnakumar wrote:
>
> What /packages/source/ lacks is:
>
> 1/ Missing packages (eg: Twisted is not there); which is why
> easy_install/pip had to resolve to scrapping project webpages for
> guessing download links. In CPAN, almost all module authors upload their
> sources via PAUSE.
>
> 2/ No metadata: When only source tarballs are stored
> [pypi.python.org/packages/source/P/Pylons/], what is the reliable way to
> a) get the source for latest version, b) get the source for a particular
> version? In CPAN [cpan.org/modules/by-module/AppConfig/ABW/], each
> tarball has a .meta file describing the module metadata (similar to
> PKG-INFO). I don't want XmlRpc, but just files/directories (note
> simplicity in Steffen's post).

3/ Indices such as http://www.cpan.org/modules/01modules.mtime.html (or 
TXT files) to get a) recently released packages, b) list of release 
versions for a particular package, and so on (which would obviate the 
XmlRpc interface)

-srid