"Lite" vs. "Full" Python Ports

[Rainer Müller]

Arthur Koziel wrote:
> The current python25 port doesn't install the core modules. It expects  
> the user to install the ones he need. This leads to some confusion, as  
> new users generally assume that "core modules" like hashlib should  
> always be available (and a lot python script do rely on them).
> 
> On the other hand, if the python25 port would enable all modules a lot  
> of dependencies would get pulled in (9 in total; see the third comment  
> in the ticket for a list). Not everyone wants to have these ports  
> installed. Some people just want to have a minimal python interpreter.

9 direct dependencies, which of course have other dependencies again.

Here is a diff of 'port-rdeps -r python25' for both versions:

--- python25-no-modules.txt
+++ python25-modules.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,36 @@
 Dependencies of python25:
   gettext
     libiconv
       gperf
     ncurses
       ncursesw
     expat
+  zlib
+  openssl
+  tk
+    tcl
+    Xft2
+      xrender
+        xorg-libX11
+          xorg-libXdmcp
+            pkgconfig
+            xorg-xproto
+          xorg-libXau
+          xorg-bigreqsproto
+          xorg-xcmiscproto
+          xorg-xtrans
+          xorg-xextproto
+          xorg-xf86bigfontproto
+          xorg-inputproto
+          xorg-kbproto
+        xorg-renderproto
+      freetype
+      fontconfig
+    xorg-libXScrnSaver
+      xorg-libXext
+      xorg-scrnsaverproto
+  sqlite3
+    readline
+  db46
+  bzip2
+  gdbm

> Additionally, there seems to be a inconsistency with all python ports  
> regarding this issue. The python24 port doesn't install core modules  
> (same as python25) but python26 installs them. It would be great if we  
> could have a consistent approach to this.

Consistency +1

In my opinion, most users won't need tkinter and thus do not need to
install tk. As you can see from above, this is what pulls the most
dependencies in. So what about removing only tk from the default python
builds to maintain less dependencies, but offer more features by default?

But you could also say that would be inconsistent again :-)

Rainer