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Python Code Repository?

hanson at europa.com hanson at europa.com
Sat Jul 10 01:13:58 EDT 1999 
I looked at Troves web site and reviewing the mailing list archives.. I
think that trove is not off the ground yet. 

Using CPAN is not fun. I find it's organization is not intuitive (about intuitive as perl itself). In the python world I find that not having a organized central repository not as bad as it seems. I tend to find new modules by skimming the mailing list and reading www.python.org & freshmeat. Lately, though there is a lot of redundancy on the mailing list where interested parties are inquiring about previously discussed modules. 

One thing that I have found useful using python & the contributed modules
is that they reside where the author has control, so that he/she may provide hints & documentation and divulge the uses & enchancements to his/her module. Also, most of the modules have an interdependency between python and products. 

To the point, I don't think that a CPAN like structure is as useful for
python as it sounds, but I feel that there is something else we can do to
help the python community be more efficient in proliferating modules &
extensions to the language. Where a repository for modules would be
useful is when the author has not provided packages such as RPMs or full
installation & usage instructions.

A perl script that I use (very) frequently called cvsweb.
cvsweb allows you to view your cvs logs & differences. 
We could rewrite and enhance this tool allow for an intuitive query architecture for viewing source & changelogs of python
and it's extensions. This could easily written as a Zope product.

The next idea would be something in python that would make it easy to
manage packages & dependencies. RPM is a example of a good architecture that allows the user to easily install & upgrade his/her tools without losing all of the flexibility of self-compiled packages. If I had a python interface to the redhat rpm's it would do a world of good for trying out new things. 

Notice that there are probably only two  or three installers for windows & theyall know how to deinstall what they install.
If we wrote something up for windows that could recognize these formats,
it would be almost the same as a package manager. (of course you would
need some way of wading through all that microsoft piddle)

I know that linuxconf (redhat) was written mostly in python. (am I wrong?)
what is the status of pythoneers supporting or extending this?
 
On a sidenote one of the best things about python is that most every
module & extension comes with a demo and test facility. This is
very helpful when trying out new things. Thanks :>

,Andrew Hanson


PS. my shift key was in use by my cat.
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