[Python-ideas] Python Package Collections

[Bohuslav Kabrda]

----- Original Message -----
> Hi folks, here is an idea that came out of (not quite) thin air:
> 
> Pypi, setuptools, distribute & Co are all very useful for finding,
> installing, upgrading, etc. of python packages. They even handle
> dependencies! Yaaaay!
> 
> However, there is one more thing that could be built on top of them
> that would make them even more useful. This is the <drum roll please>
> Python Package Collections! This would be an online service to
> organize packages into collections allowing one to download, install,
> build, upgrade, etc. many packages at once. Say somebody finds
> package1, package2, package3, package4 very useful and figure they
> naturally belong together by topic. And so our test person always
> wants to have them all installed so when he downloads a new python
> version which will make his python arsenal not only 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7
> 3.1 3.2 3.3 but also 3.4, he won't have to install all these packages
> separately again but he can just install the collection with one
> command or one click.
> 
> You might ask why can't our test person just do "install package1"
> then "install package2" then "install package3" then "install
> package4"? Well, certainly he could do that but if he found that
> these
> four packages nicely go together chances are others will find it
> handy
> to have them all too. So our brilliant test person will want to share
> his collection with others telling them essentially "if you like
> working with X" or "you frequently develop for Y" then "you can just
> install my collection and you will be ready to go"!
> 
> Anybody could organize packages into collections and I bet there
> would
> be very popular ones like "mathematics" including all sorts of math
> packages from pypi, or "pdfgoodies" including everything pdf related
> that one typically needs for work with pdf. These don't have to
> depend
> on each other (dependencies are handled quite well by existing
> tools),
> they just need to have the property that they are very handy to have
> together.
> 
> To be honest the idea is not mine, take a look at
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/ how add-ons for
> firefox are organized into collections. It's basically the same idea
> but for python packages.
> 
> This whole thing could be integrated into pypi or initially the idea
> could be tested on a separate site to see if it catches on.
> 
> What do you all think?
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel
> 

I think you can emulate this behaviour by creating a pypi "metapackage" - an empty package that only "install_requires" the others.
Having said that, I agree that it might be nice to support this as a new feature (by more light-weight solution that the mentioned "metapackages").

-- 
Regards,
Bohuslav "Slavek" Kabrda.