[Distutils] nailed-down versions by having custom index

[Reinout van Rees]

Hi all,

I'd like to do a bit of experimenting with a custom index with only the 
right packages in just the right versions. Some possible advantages I'm 
hoping to see for my usecase:

- Isolation from one of various servers being down (pypi, sourceforge).

- Guaranteed versions even when not using buildout. (Stuff needs "python 
setup.py install" in the system python, apparently, for arcgis/arcview 
on windows to be able to use it).

Personally, I'd just let everyone use buildout, but I think I won't be 
able to get that working with that "install it in site-packages" 
requirement.  (Ideas welcome, of course).


Question: how to maintain such a custom index?

iirc chrism has a script to build an apache-served folder structure from 
a bunch of eggs/tarballs, so just having the tarballs is enough. 
Probably just putting those tarballs in one location is enough anyway.

But how to get the right collection of tarballs in there? Is that a 
by-hand approach? Can you automate it?


Question 2: I thought you could only have one index.  So installing 
something extra from pypi seems out.  How do people handle that?


I'm totally used to buildout and its [versions] list and 
buildout.dumppickedversions and KGS lists, so I need to reset my 
thinking on this a little.  I need some input :-)



Reinout

-- 
Reinout van Rees - reinout at vanrees.org - http://reinout.vanrees.org
Programmer/advisor at http://www.nelen-schuurmans.nl
"Military engineers build missiles. Civil engineers build targets"