Python equivalent of CPAN Library modules

[Ron Stephens]

I think this is a great idea! I would certainly be interested in the resulting
libraries, and so would many others, I am quite sure. I do feel that I am not
sufficiently capable to contribute meaningful help in the programming work, yet.
Hopefully someday.

But if you go forward, I think you will be following in some pretty noble
footsteps of public-benefactor pioneering Pythonistas of old..

Bravo!

and hopefully others will be motivated to help, thus contributing to the good of
mankind, civilization, and the human-way...

David Hurt wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Before I begin, I want to state that I am a python AND perl user.  I typically
> prefer python.
>
> At last year's python conference, the theme seemed to be "batteries included"
> referring to the high availability and quality of pre-built functionality in
> the python standard library.
>
> One thing I think may help python is the availability of even more "batteries"
> in the form of additional modules available.
>
> One such source may be the perl CPAN repository.  The CPAN has a collection of
> very high quality libraries for a variety of applications.  If these libraries
> could be converted to equivalent python, then the libraries could be used for
> python programs :)
>
> I think this could be done, as python is roughly equivalent to perl in terms
> of language features (dynamic structures, regular expressions, hash=dict,
> array=list, etc).  I have even done some things like this before Python->perl
> conversions and perl->python conversions
>
> I have a couple of questions before I start on some grand effort.
>
> 1.  Has anyone looked at doing something like this before?
> 2.  Would anyone be interested in the results?
> 3.  Is this even a worthwhile effort?
>
> I am a part-time grad student and full-time employee.  I may use this effort
> as a project for credit if possible.
>
> My general plan is this
>
> 1.  Examine the CPAN archive and map the Perl modules to equivalent python
> standard library modules (and contributed modules in the Vaults of Parnassus)
> (I imagine that this will be a HUGE effort)
> 2.  Get a list of the most commonly requested CPAN modules
> 3.  Convert the highest CPAN module that is not already mapped to python and
> submit to the Vaults of Parnassus
> 4.  Repeat steps 1-3 until some arbitrary time or until the "most important"
> 20-30% of the CPAN modules have a python equivalent.
>
> I would appreciate any feedback on the practicality/usefulness/etc. of this
> effort.
>
> Thanks,
> David Hurt
> davehurt at flash.net