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PEP 206 – Python Advanced Library | peps.python.org
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark"> <title>PEP 206 – Python Advanced Library | peps.python.org</title> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="../_static/py.png"> <link rel="canonical" href="https://peps.python.org/pep-0206/"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/style.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/mq.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light)" id="pyg-light"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments_dark.css" type="text/css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" id="pyg-dark"> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Latest PEPs" href="https://peps.python.org/peps.rss"> <meta property="og:title" content='PEP 206 – Python Advanced Library | peps.python.org'> <meta property="og:description" content="This PEP describes the Python Advanced Library, a collection of high-quality and frequently-used third party extension modules."> <meta property="og:type" content="website"> <meta property="og:url" content="https://peps.python.org/pep-0206/"> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs)"> <meta property="og:image" content="https://peps.python.org/_static/og-image.png"> <meta property="og:image:alt" content="Python PEPs"> <meta property="og:image:width" content="200"> <meta property="og:image:height" content="200"> <meta name="description" content="This PEP describes the Python Advanced Library, a collection of high-quality and frequently-used third party extension modules."> <meta name="theme-color" content="#3776ab"> </head> <body> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" style="display: none;"> <symbol id="svg-sun-half" viewBox="0 0 24 24" pointer-events="all"> <title>Following system colour scheme</title> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"> <circle cx="12" cy="12" r="9"></circle> <path d="M12 3v18m0-12l4.65-4.65M12 14.3l7.37-7.37M12 19.6l8.85-8.85"></path> </svg> </symbol> <symbol id="svg-moon" viewBox="0 0 24 24" pointer-events="all"> <title>Selected dark colour scheme</title> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"> <path stroke="none" d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"></path> <path d="M12 3c.132 0 .263 0 .393 0a7.5 7.5 0 0 0 7.92 12.446a9 9 0 1 1 -8.313 -12.454z"></path> </svg> </symbol> <symbol id="svg-sun" viewBox="0 0 24 24" pointer-events="all"> <title>Selected light colour scheme</title> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"> <circle cx="12" cy="12" r="5"></circle> <line x1="12" y1="1" x2="12" y2="3"></line> <line x1="12" y1="21" x2="12" y2="23"></line> <line x1="4.22" y1="4.22" x2="5.64" y2="5.64"></line> <line x1="18.36" y1="18.36" x2="19.78" y2="19.78"></line> <line x1="1" y1="12" x2="3" y2="12"></line> <line x1="21" y1="12" x2="23" y2="12"></line> <line x1="4.22" y1="19.78" x2="5.64" y2="18.36"></line> <line x1="18.36" y1="5.64" x2="19.78" y2="4.22"></line> </svg> </symbol> </svg> <script> document.documentElement.dataset.colour_scheme = localStorage.getItem("colour_scheme") || "auto" </script> <section id="pep-page-section"> <header> <h1>Python Enhancement Proposals</h1> <ul class="breadcrumbs"> <li><a href="https://www.python.org/" title="The Python Programming Language">Python</a> » </li> <li><a href="../pep-0000/">PEP Index</a> » </li> <li>PEP 206</li> </ul> <button id="colour-scheme-cycler" onClick="setColourScheme(nextColourScheme())"> <svg aria-hidden="true" class="colour-scheme-icon-when-auto"><use href="#svg-sun-half"></use></svg> <svg aria-hidden="true" class="colour-scheme-icon-when-dark"><use href="#svg-moon"></use></svg> <svg aria-hidden="true" class="colour-scheme-icon-when-light"><use href="#svg-sun"></use></svg> <span class="visually-hidden">Toggle light / dark / auto colour theme</span> </button> </header> <article> <section id="pep-content"> <h1 class="page-title">PEP 206 – Python Advanced Library</h1> <dl class="rfc2822 field-list simple"> <dt class="field-odd">Author<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-odd">A.M. Kuchling <amk at amk.ca></dd> <dt class="field-even">Status<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-even"><abbr title="Removed from consideration by sponsor or authors">Withdrawn</abbr></dd> <dt class="field-odd">Type<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-odd"><abbr title="Non-normative PEP containing background, guidelines or other information relevant to the Python ecosystem">Informational</abbr></dd> <dt class="field-even">Created<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-even">14-Jul-2000</dd> <dt class="field-odd">Post-History<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-odd"><p></p></dd> </dl> <hr class="docutils" /> <section id="contents"> <details><summary>Table of Contents</summary><ul class="simple"> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#batteries-included-philosophy">Batteries Included Philosophy</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-web-tasks">Domain: Web tasks</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-scientific-programming">Domain: Scientific Programming</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-application-development">Domain: Application Development</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-education">Domain: Education</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#software-covered-by-the-gnu-general-public-license">Software covered by the GNU General Public License</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#open-issues">Open Issues</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></li> </ul> </details></section> <div class="pep-banner sticky-banner deprecated withdrawn admonition important"> <p class="admonition-title">Important</p> <p>This PEP has been withdrawn.</p> <p class="close-button">×</p> <p></p> </div> <section id="introduction"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#introduction" role="doc-backlink">Introduction</a></h2> <p>This PEP describes the Python Advanced Library, a collection of high-quality and frequently-used third party extension modules.</p> </section> <section id="batteries-included-philosophy"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#batteries-included-philosophy" role="doc-backlink">Batteries Included Philosophy</a></h2> <p>The Python source distribution has long maintained the philosophy of “batteries included” – having a rich and versatile standard library which is immediately available, without making the user download separate packages. This gives the Python language a head start in many projects.</p> <p>However, the standard library modules aren’t always the best choices for a job. Some library modules were quick hacks (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">calendar</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">commands</span></code>), some were designed poorly and are now near-impossible to fix (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cgi</span></code>), and some have been rendered obsolete by other, more complete modules (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">binascii</span></code> offers the same features as the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">binhex</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">uu</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">base64</span></code> modules). This PEP describes a list of third-party modules that make Python more competitive for various application domains, forming the Python Advanced Library.</p> <p>The deliverable is a set of scripts that will retrieve, build, and install the packages for a particular application domain. The Python Package Index now contains enough information to let software automatically find packages and download them, so the time is ripe to implement this.</p> <p>Currently this document doesn’t suggest <em>removing</em> modules from the standard library that are superseded by a third-party module. That’s difficult to do because it entails many backward-compatibility problems, so it’s not worth bothering with now.</p> <p>Please suggest additional domains of interest.</p> </section> <section id="domain-web-tasks"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#domain-web-tasks" role="doc-backlink">Domain: Web tasks</a></h2> <p>XML parsing: ElementTree + SAX.</p> <p>URL retrieval: libcurl? other possibilities?</p> <p>HTML parsing: mxTidy? HTMLParser?</p> <p>Async network I/O: Twisted</p> <p>RDF parser: ???</p> <p>HTTP serving: ???</p> <p>HTTP cookie processing: ???</p> <p>Web framework: A WSGI gateway, perhaps? Paste?</p> <p>Graphics: PIL, Chaco.</p> </section> <section id="domain-scientific-programming"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#domain-scientific-programming" role="doc-backlink">Domain: Scientific Programming</a></h2> <p>Numeric: Numeric, SciPy</p> <p>Graphics: PIL, Chaco.</p> </section> <section id="domain-application-development"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#domain-application-development" role="doc-backlink">Domain: Application Development</a></h2> <p>GUI toolkit: ???</p> <p>Graphics: Reportlab for PDF generation.</p> </section> <section id="domain-education"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#domain-education" role="doc-backlink">Domain: Education</a></h2> <p>Graphics: PyGame</p> </section> <section id="software-covered-by-the-gnu-general-public-license"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#software-covered-by-the-gnu-general-public-license" role="doc-backlink">Software covered by the GNU General Public License</a></h2> <p>Some of these third-party modules are covered by the GNU General Public License and the GNU Lesser General Public License. Providing a script to download and install such packages, or even assembling all these packages into a single tarball or CD-ROM, shouldn’t cause any difficulties with the GPL, under the “mere aggregation” clause of the license.</p> </section> <section id="open-issues"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#open-issues" role="doc-backlink">Open Issues</a></h2> <p>What other application domains are important?</p> <p>Should this just be a set of Ubuntu or Debian packages? Compiling things such as PyGame can be very complicated and may be too difficult to automate.</p> </section> <section id="acknowledgements"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#acknowledgements" role="doc-backlink">Acknowledgements</a></h2> <p>The PEP is based on an earlier draft PEP by Moshe Zadka, titled “2.0 Batteries Included.”</p> </section> </section> <hr class="docutils" /> <p>Source: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0206.rst">https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0206.rst</a></p> <p>Last modified: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/peps/commits/main/peps/pep-0206.rst">2024-04-14 13:35:25 GMT</a></p> </article> <nav id="pep-sidebar"> <h2>Contents</h2> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#batteries-included-philosophy">Batteries Included Philosophy</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-web-tasks">Domain: Web tasks</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-scientific-programming">Domain: Scientific Programming</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-application-development">Domain: Application Development</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#domain-education">Domain: Education</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#software-covered-by-the-gnu-general-public-license">Software covered by the GNU General Public License</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#open-issues">Open Issues</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></li> </ul> <br> <a id="source" href="https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0206.rst">Page Source (GitHub)</a> </nav> </section> <script src="../_static/colour_scheme.js"></script> <script src="../_static/wrap_tables.js"></script> <script src="../_static/sticky_banner.js"></script> </body> </html>