[MacPorts] #14342: python25 drops modules by default, but python25 doesn't

[Markus Weissmann]

On 20 Feb 2008, at 15:48, js wrote:

> Hi Markus,
>
>> does not compute: "python25 drops but python25 doesn't" --
>> contradiction detected. ;)
>
> Oops! That's typo.
> My question was why python2.4 and 2.5 is different.
>
>> If the question was why python25 does not build all auxiliary modules
>> [1] like _sqlite3 etc.: For people who don't need e.g. tk-support,
>> building all those dependencies is unnecessary.
>> We had this discussion of which modules would be cool to include by
>> default and which not to already. Conclusion was that either we  
>> rename
>> python25 to python25-core and make a "virtual" port python25 that
>> requires all modules+python25-core OR to make a python25-all (or
>> whatever) port that collects all "cool" modules by dependency. The
>> former sucks because we would need to change a lot of dependencies  
>> and
>> the latter never made it into the repository because nobody cared
>> enough. If someone is keen on getting the former to work: Please fix
>> all dependencies!!! (And please also make this consistent for 2.4 and
>> 3.0)
>
> Thanks for thorough explanation. That makes sense.
> The reason why I started this discussion is that
> I want to make python24 to be python25-like port.
> What if I created patches for this,
> Would you accept that changes?
>

well, what else do you want to change? There already are py-bsddb, py- 
readline, .. which provide modules not build by default (by the  
python24 port).


> As for python25's design you brought up, I prefer the former,
> which apparently not your favorite :)
> The former reminds me of Debian/GNU Linux's "python" package.
> The python package is a dependency package which depends on
> "default python", python2.4 and python-minimal.
> Any chance making this changes?
>

If you _really_ don't bother which python you end up with (and it  
doesn't matter if that changes), then you can use the "python_select:  
port to do just that.
It basically provides symlinks to the real executables which you can  
change by calling python_select(1).
Attention: If your port makes note of the exact location of you python  
executable, this might create an implicit dependency (which will cause  
breakage if you uninstall the "wrong" python)

> To be honest, I also want to change py- prefix ports to py24-
> but this plan is rejected recently...


Rejected? Most probably due to the amount of work on both the project  
and the users' side.
I think this would be cool, but if someone tackles this: Do a single  
commit on _all_ renamed ports and ports that depend on those AND write  
a mail to macports-users@ AND put something on the FAQ how to handle  
potential breakage.


Regards,

-Markus

--
Dipl. Inf. (FH) Markus W. Weissmann
http://www.macports.org/
http://www.mweissmann.de/