[Python-ideas] More "ensure*" packages

[Nick Coghlan]

On 15 August 2015 at 01:52, Steve Dower <steve.dower at python.org> wrote:
> On 13Aug2015 2134, Terry Reedy wrote:
>>
>> On 8/13/2015 1:06 PM, Steve Dower wrote:
>>>
>>> I'd like to propose expanding the list of 3rd-party packages we bundle
>>> and install by default. (Obviously this does not apply to platforms that
>>> repackage Python and can do whatever they want, but on Windows and Mac
>>> we are fully responsible for these.)
>>>
>>> Currently, we bundle pip (and some of its dependencies - let's avoid
>>> that particular discussion right now please, it's on python-dev) and
>>> install it by default in a way that lets users easily update to the
>>> latest version. Including pip in the standard library would lock users
>>> into a specific version for the lifetime of that Python version, which
>>> would be a bad thing.
>>>
>>>  From my point-of-view, this has been very successful in Python 2.7, 3.4
>>> and will also be successful in 3.5. For Python 3.6, I'd like to do a
>>> similar thing with:
>>>
>>> * requests
>>
>>
>> Not in stdlib, so easier availability is a plus
>>
>>> * tkinter (including tcl/tk, IDLE, and other dependencies)
>>
>>
>> In stdlib, heavily used by beginners, who will not be helped by the
>> change and who may possibly be harmed by reduced availability.
>
>
> It's the biggest (only?) application in the standard library. idlelib is not
> documented, and I describe below how this wouldn't necessarily reduce
> availability or ease of entry for anyone.

There's no reason to have a GUI toolkit installed on a headless
server, so many (all?) Linux distros also already separate it out into
a distinct package:

$ python -V
Python 2.7.10

$ python -c "import tkinter"
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named tkinter

Distros like Raspbian include it in the base install in order to also
provide IDLE.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia