[Python-Dev] setuptools: past, present, future

[Terry Reedy]

"Phillip J. Eby" <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote in message 
news:5.1.1.6.0.20060422113949.01e49820 at mail.telecommunity.com...
> At 05:41 PM 4/22/2006 +1000, Nick Coghlan wrote:
>>I'm not sure that's what Terry meant - I took it to mean *make the spider
>>part of PyPI itself*.
>
> Which would also be accomplished by using Grig's Cheesecake tool, since 
> it
> uses easy_install to fetch the source.

I think Nick was much closer to what I meant.  Let me try again.

As I understood your post, setuptools/easyinstall has some spider, 
heuristic, and screen-scrape code that tries to fetch info that one would 
like to have been in PyPI, but is not.  I inferred that if the fetched info 
is not cached anywhere, then mutiple clients would have to repeat the 
process.  Based on this understanding, and cognizant that your project's 
newly elevated status opens options that you did not have before, I had 
three related suggestions:

1. Move appropriate code from all the clients to one server, either 
associated with the PyPI server or even that server itself.  (Among other 
things, this would allow you to update heuristics, etc, without 
distribution to existing clients or worry about bloating them.)

2. Once missing info is discovered, save it so the discovery process is not 
repeated.

3. If the search fails, email *someone*.  I suggested *either* the package 
author (under an authoritative signature) or a non-author volunteer who 
could proceed somehow, such as searching more or contacting the author as a 
human.

If my premises above are mistaken, then the suggestions should be modified 
or discarded.  However, I don't see how they conflict at all with a 
consumer rating system.

Terry Jan Reedy