[Biopython-dev] KEGG support

[Peter]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 8:12 PM, Kyle <kellrott at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think external library dependancies should be avoided unless necessary.
>  Would a tool like wsdl2py produce code that isn't dependent on an installed
> library? Alternatively, suds is LGPL based, could we just cannibalize the
> source code for the important classes?

Working with SOAP is so complicated that using an external library
would be the sensible option. It would be an optional dependency
(and would not be an install time dependency like NumPy), much
like how we have a optional dependency on ReportLab just for
Bio.Graphics, and now also the option to use NetworkX with the
new Bio.phylo code.

Package management (e.g. under Linux distros) can mark these
external modules as suggestions or soft requirements, making
this quite straight forward.

Regarding some of Giovanni's points, modularising the distribution
of Biopython (which can already be considered to be a core plus
assorted domain-specific modules like Bio.PDB, Bio.Cluster,
Bio.Graphics and so on) seems premature to me give the current
state of python distribution.

Peter

P.S. We can't take any GPL or LPGL code and incorporate it into
Biopython, due to the nature of those licences.