[Python-Dev] PEP 408 -- Standard library preview package (original) (raw)

Scott Dial scott+python-dev at scottdial.com
Sat Jan 28 06:09:13 CET 2012

On 1/27/2012 8:48 PM, Barry Warsaw wrote:

The thinking goes like this: if you would normally use an preview module because you can't get approval to download some random package from PyPI, well then your distro probably could or should provide it, so get it from them.

That is my thought about the entire preview concept. Anything that would/should go into preview would be better off being packaged for a couple of key distros (e.g., Ubuntu/Fedora/Gentoo) where they would get better visibility than just being on PyPI and would be more flexible in terms of release schedule to allow API changes.

If the effort being put into making the preview package was put into packaging those modules for distros, then you would get the same exposure with better flexibility and a better maintenance story. The whole idea of preview seems to be a workaround for the difficult packaging story for Python modules on common distros -- stuffing them into preview is a cheat to get the distro packagers to distribute these interesting modules since we would be bundling them.

However, as you have pointed out, it would very desirable to them to not do so. So in the end, these modules may not receive as wide of visibility as the PEP suggests. I could very easily imagine the more stable distributions refusing or patching anything that used preview in order to eliminate difficulties.

-- Scott Dial scott at scottdial.com

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