Re: Why do we need Python sub-modules?

[Adam <adam%netbsd.org@localhost>]

>> 
>> Currently devel/readline is marked as build dependency for every Python.
>> Why not using is as full dependency and provide users with command
>> history in Python interpreter? I've seen questions popping here and
>> there, how to enable history in Python provided by PkgSrc? We should
>> provide readline. That's what is expected.
> 
> It is a build dependency, because it doesn't work otherwise due to
> misfeatures of the configuration system of Python. Frankly, if you want
> to have good command history and stuff, you should be using ipython
> anyway. I don't see a good reason for handling readline different from
> the rest.

I use iPython too, but average user/novice might not. And even I find it annoying to build py-readline on top of lang/python.


>> As for other modules:
>> 
>> curses/curses_panel - should depend on system library (most systens provide curses support); in worst case, there will be ncurses (MIT licence).
> 
> Yes and ncurses is already not that small.
> 
>> elementtree/pyexpat - is required for correct XML support; try:
>> 	python -c "import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET; ET.fromstring('<x />')"
>> 	without textproc/py-expat being installed; both modules depend on textproc/expat (MIT licence); it is double wrong to separate them.
> 
> Not true, the minidom implementation works quite well for a lot of use
> cases.

So what? ElementTree stays broken, and you can't easily tell if a package needs py-expat. Anyway, py-setuptools depends on py-expat, and today everything depends on py-setuptools.


>> spwd - only for Linux to access shadow password files; no dependencies.
> 
> I don't care about it at all. Never had a use case for it, doesn't do
> anything significant either.

Nevertheless, keeping it out makes Python incomplete.

Adam