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Python needs a CPyAN

Ville Vainio ville at spammers.com
Tue Nov 2 10:58:06 EST 2004 
>>>>> "Steve" == Stephen Ferg <steve at ferg.org> writes:

    Steve> Python's lack of a CPAN-like facility, and I submit that
    Steve> without a CPyAN Python will never even get close to
    Steve> achieving the degree of widespread usage that Perl
    Steve> currently enjoys.

...

    Steve> It is no good saying that Python doesn't need a CPyAN
    Steve> because we've got Google, or we've got SourceForge, or
    Steve> we've got PyPI or distutils or the Vaults of Parnassus.
    Steve> Even used together, all of these tools still fall short of
    Steve> the capabilities of CPAN.  Only a full CPyAN will provide
    Steve> the quality and ease-of-use of external modules that will
    Steve> enable Python to flourish in the coming decade.

I think you are overselling CPAN a little bit here. It is not an
absolute requirement, and I think Python can easily surpass Perl in
popularity even without CPAN functionality. Perl popularity in general
seems to be going down, and I don't think Perl is something to worry
about anymore. Hell, people rarely even mention Perl these days
anyway.

    Steve> one: "I wish I could convince my organization to use
    Steve> Python, because Python really is a better technology, and
    Steve> my organization really does need it."  And the answer to
    Steve> that wish, too, lies in making Python more popular.)

I don't think Python is too unpopular to sell to companies
anymore. All you need to do is to demonstrate technical superiority,
and that should be trivial if the other contender is Perl. Provided
that your company is not already too stuck with Perl, which is rarely
the case because with Perl you usually dealing with simple scripts.

    Steve> Building a CPyAN will be a big job, no question.  But I
    Steve> think that for the Python community and for the Python
    Steve> Software Foundation, it should be job number one.

Perhaps the priority should be to build a generic Open Source
catalogued repository retrieval system. I don't see why the Python
community should do something like this alone, because there really
isn't too many Python specific aspects in the problem anyway.

Perhaps Arch might be a good starting point...

-- 
Ville Vainio   http://tinyurl.com/2prnb
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