Python evolution: Unease

[Paul Rubin]

Ville Vainio <ville at spammers.com> writes:
>     Paul> I can't parse that.  It says two contradictory things.
>     Paul> Sentence 2 says that if something essential is not in the
>     Paul> (Python) distro then the (Python) distro maintainers have
>     Paul> screwed up.  Sentence 1 says it's the Fedora maintainer's
>     Paul> job to deal with it.  Huh?
> 
> By "distro" I meant the Linux distribution, not the Python
> distribution. Distro is a customary term for a Linux distribution so I
> didn't qualify the word at the time.

Oh ok, but it's the Python distribution that's missing components that
are essential to Python.  Fedora and other Linux distros are
collections of subsystems like Python.  Linux distro maintainers get
asked to include a subsystem, they check that the subsystem has a
reasonable reputation (Python does), they install it in the distro and
run some basic tests, and they ship it.  They can't be expected to
immerse themselves in its intricacies and hang out on the user forums
to identify all the missing components that they should also hunt down
and ship.  So the Python needs to take care of that stuff.

I realize that in the old days, people used to write big applications
without makefiles, and later when they started using makefiles, they
didn't use configure scripts.  So to install a package, you had to do
a bunch of hand configuration for your particular environment before
you could compile it, and maybe you even had to say 
  cc -O -Dthisflag=thatnumber xyz.c pqr.c frob.c -o frob
on the command line instead of typing "make" to build the program.
That kind of thing really doesn't fly any more.  The standards for
what constitutes a properly engineered release of something have
gotten higher.  You really need automatic configuration and build and
installation.  Likewise, if you're trying to market something as a
complete drop-in system ("batteries included", to use the Python
terminology), it should not be missing any essential pieces that
the user has to hunt down separately.