Subject: Python packages.
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: Richard Rauch <rauch@rice.edu>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 12/09/2002 22:36:53
I count 7 ...pkgsrc/lang/python* packages (one is just "python", but it's
not immediately clear to me if I can use it to unify the other 6 and their
dependants).

Some things seem to want the 2.1 or 2.2 version; others want 2.0, and I
think that I even had one application load the 1.5 Python.  (1.5 is used
by grail, I guess; 2.1 seems to be prefered by Pmw/Tk support...
py-imagingtk has started building 2.0, I think...)

I like Python as a language, but I don't really need 6 versions of it; and
I certainly might want to use Pmw concurrently with the imaging stuff.
(^&

Is it just that some stuff uses (e.g.) Python 1.5, and no one has got
around to updating it?  Or does (e.g.) grail really *need* 1.5?  Or is
there some way that I can tell pkgsrc, "Put everything on Python 2.2 with
pthreads"?  If so, it seems desirable that there should be a default
setting so that you normally *do* get one version of Python.  If it'll
help, I can send-pr this, but I thought that I'd start by asking.


Thanks for listening.


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu