[Python-Dev] Sumo (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Thu May 27 18:22:10 CEST 2010

On 27/05/2010 16:56, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

Paul Moore writes: > On 27 May 2010 00:11, geremy condra<debatem1 at gmail.com> wrote: > > I'm not clear, you seem to be arguing that there's a market for many > > augmented python distributions but not one. Why not just have one > > that includes the best from each domain? > > Because that's "bloat". You later argue that a web designer wouldn't > care if his "distribution" included numpy. OK, maybe, but if my needs > are simply futures, cxOracle and pywin32, I would object to > downloading many megabytes of other stuff just to get those three. > It's a matter of degree.

So don't do that. Go to PyPI and get just what you need. The point of the sumo is that there are people and organizations with more bandwidth/diskspace than brains (or to be more accurate, they have enough bandwidth that optimizing bandwidth is a poor use of their brains). To my mind one of the most important benefits of a "sumo" style distribution is not just that it easily provides a whole bunch of useful modules - but that it highlights which modules are the community blessed "best of breed". At the moment if a new user wants to work out how to achieve a particular task (work with images for example) they have to google around and try and work out what the right module to use is.

For some problem domains there are a host of modules on PyPI many of which are unmaintained, immature or simply rubbish. A standardised solution makes choosing solutions for common problems dramatically easier, and may save people much heartache and frustration. For that to work though it needs to be well curated and genuinely have the substantial backing of the Python development community.

All the best,

Michael

-- http://www.ironpythoninaction.com/ http://www.voidspace.org.uk/blog

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