Python is shit!
Apparently, perl is rubbish because <whine>the tools aren't friendly</whine>.
Well, if that's the case, then python is too:
$ git clone git://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl.git
Cloning into youtube-dl...
...
$ cd youtube-dl/
$ make
Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>
Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix>
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>]
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Could not import runpy module
pandoc -s -w man README.md -o youtube-dl.1
make: pandoc: Command not found
make: *** [youtube-dl.1] Error 127
$ dpkg -l|grep python
ii python 2.6.6-3+squeeze7 interactive high-level object-oriented language (default version)
...