[Pythonmac-SIG] Package Manager idea, adding a URL scheme

[Bob Ippolito]

On Friday, Oct 3, 2003, at 14:53 America/New_York, Ronald Oussoren 
wrote:

>
> On 3 okt 2003, at 19:44, Just van Rossum wrote:
>
>> Bob Ippolito wrote:
>>
>>> I think Jack is thinking too much about source package installs,
>>> while you and I are focused on binary package installs?  The binary
>>> ones are the real win of PackMan, and the source package installs
>>> would be icing on the cake, mostly.
>>
>> Yes. I'd even go so far as to not support source installs at all...
>
> Not supporting/using source-installs would also reduce the length of 
> the package list, which is a good thing.

PackMan could easily suppress the multiple listings and just offer 
multiple flavors.  The source vs. binary separation isn't inherent in 
the package name, it's appended based upon one of the other keys in the 
plist.

>
>>
>> Who needs source installs? I think it's only people who (for example)
>> have their own private extension modules that extend Numeric. That
>> should be a _very_ small group of people, and a rather savvy group at
>> that: they might as well install Numeric without PackMan.
> Or write their own PackMan infrastruture for distributing their 
> private extension modules.

Good point.

>>
>> Here's an issue that I'm not totally clear about: there are packages
>> that need external frameworks, I think wxPython and Tcl/Tk are the 
>> main
>> examples here. Are these special cases, or does PackMan need to
>> _generally_ support installing external libraries? If the latter, what
>> kind of consequences does that have for cross-platform support? Is 
>> that
>> a reasonable goal/requirement at all?
>
> In general the python wrappers for existing C libraries need a 
> seperate install of the wrapped library (if not included in the OS). I 
> personally prefer to staticly the C library into the python extension 
> (makes it easier to distribute the extension), but that is not always 
> feasable (sp?).

It's not always feasible, but that's what I typically do if possible.  
I dynamically link anything that is available as a framework though.

-bob