Next generation package management in Linux

Currently there are several efforts going on to create some "next generation" package management tool for Linux. Two prominent examples are YUM (http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/) and SMART (http://labix.org/smart). Both claim
to be extendible and reusable. On YUM there is some terse documentation on how to do this, for SMART there seems to be no documentation about this at all.
Goal of the project would be:
-- Compare these two tools in functionality and extensibility
-- Document extension and reuse of these tools by building a (two) small
application(s) using both package management tools as basis.

Helpful Knowledge: Python, Linux, package management