[Numpy-discussion] Announcing toydist, improving distribution and packaging situation

[Keith Goodman]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:10 AM, René Dudfield <renesd at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 12:47, René Dudfield <renesd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 2:26 PM, Ravi <lists_ravi at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday 30 December 2009 06:15:45 René Dudfield wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I agree with many things in that post.  Except your conclusion on
>>>>> multiple versions of packages in isolation.  Package isolation is like
>>>>> processes, and package sharing is like threads - and threads are evil!
>>>>
>>>> You have stated this several times, but is there any evidence that this is the
>>>> desire of the majority of users? In the scientific community, interactive
>>>> experimentation is critical and users are typically not seasoned systems
>>>> administrators. For such users, almost all packages installed after installing
>>>> python itself are packages they use. In particular, all I want to do is to use
>>>> apt/yum to get the packages (or ask my sysadmin, who rightfully has no
>>>> interest in learning the intricacies of python package installation, to do so)
>>>> and continue with my work. "Packages-in-isolation" is for people whose job is
>>>> to run server farms, not interactive experimenters.
>>>
>>> 500+ packages on pypi.   Provide a counter point, otherwise the
>>> evidence is against your position - overwhelmingly.
>>
>> Linux distributions, which are much, much more popular than any
>> collection of packages on PyPI you might care to name. Isolated
>> environments have their uses, but they are the exception, not the
>> rule.
>>
>
> wrong.  pypi has way more python packages than any linux distribution.
>  8500+ listed, compared to how many in debian?

Debian has over 30k packages. But I think he was talking about
popularity, not the number of packages.