[Python-Dev] Sumo

[geremy condra]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26 May 2010 13:46, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>> This is not what I'm suggesting at all. The stdlib wouldn't shrink
>> (well, we could dump outdated modules but that's a separate decision).
>
> Ah, OK. In that case, I see the argument for a "Sumo" distribution as
> weak for a different reason - for general use, the standard library is
> (nearly!) sufficient, and ignoring specialised use cases, there aren't
> enough generally useful modules to warrant a "Sumo" distribution
> (you'd essentially be talking about stuff that "nearly made it into
> the stdlib", and there's not a huge amount of that).
>
> Specialised distributions are another matter - I can see a "web stack"
> distribution comprising your TurboGears example (or should it be
> Django, or...?). Enthought essentially do that for a "Scientific
> Python" distribution. There could easily be others. But a general
> purpose "Sumo" distribution *on top of* the stdlib? I'm skeptical.
> (Personally, my "essential extras" are pywin32, cx_Oracle and that's
> about it - futures might make it if it doesn't get into the stdlib,
> but that's about all).

I'm not clear, you seem to be arguing that there's a market for many
augmented python distributions but not one. Why not just have one
that includes the best from each domain?

> I'm genuinely struggling to see how a Sumo distribution ever comes
> into being under your proposal. There's no evidence that anyone wants
> it (otherwise it would have been created by now!!)

Everything worth making has already been made?

> and until it exists, it's not a plausible "place" to put modules that don't
> make it into the stdlib.

Of course its implausible to put something somewhere that
doesn't exist... until it does.

> So (unless I'm missing something) your argument seems
> to be that if enough good stuff is rejected for stdlib inclusion, this
> will prompt the people who wanted that stuff included to create a sumo
> distribution, which addresses the "too many dependencies is bad"
> argument for inclusion in the stdlib. That sounds like a suspiciously
> circular argument to me...

I'd say rather that there are a large number of specialized tools which
aren't individually popular enough to be included in Python, but which
when taken together greatly increase its utility, and that sumo offers a
way to provide that additional utility to python's users without forcing
python core devs to shoulder the maintenance burden.

Geremy Condra