[Python-3000] Proposal: No more standard library additions

[Ronald Oussoren]

On Oct 13, 2006, at 7:39 AM, Talin wrote:

> Now that I've gotten your attention :)
>
> Seriously, though, I am not proposing that there *never* be  
> additions to
> the standard library -- instead, I simply want 'easy_install' to work
> 100% of the time, so that there's much less reason to add something to
> the standard library.
>
> In fact, I would go a step further and say that I'd like to see the
> standard library cut in half. For backwards compatibility with  
> existing
> Python programs, you would simply type 'easy_install legacy', and  
> all of
> the old "batteries included" modules would be installed for you. For
> writing *new* programs however, you could use a much lighter, slimmer
> distribution.
>
> How's that for Py3000 cruft removal? :)

I'm +1 on the general idea.

>
> Unfortunately, the main obstacle at the moment is that about 50% of  
> the
> packages out there aren't compatible with setuptools. About 50% of the
> time when I say 'easy_install <bleargh>' it downloads the package and
> then says 'setup.py' not found.
>
> Moreover, I want 'easy_uninstall' to work just as easily, and I  
> want it
> to clean up the installed package without a trace. I want to be  
> able to
> download X, check it out, say "blech, I don't like X", uninstall, and
> have no guilt or loose files cluttering up my site-packages.

There's no need to wait for py3k for this, you can start on this  
right now :-). The first part is probably mostly evangelizing and/or  
patching packages.

The second part is extending setuptools with better package  
management, PJE has some ideas about that, hop over to distutils-sig  
to ask where to start ;-)

Ronald

P.S. I already have a lightweight version of easy_uninstall, it's  
called rm :-)
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