iso 8601, quality criteria

[Imbaud Pierre]

Imbaud Pierre a écrit :
cutnpaste error in this posting, here is the complete message:

Context:
  I am writing an application that accesses XMP-coded files. Some
  fields contain dates, and comply to iso 8601. I installed the iso8601
  python module (http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/iso8601), it fails
  on the simplest forms:
   ipdb> parse_date('2005-01-01')
   *** TypeError: expected string or buffer
  (behaves fine with complete strings, but this one is legal!)

Choose a module
  Python interfaces to the world: very few libs or protocols have no
  python module interfacing them. But they sometimes have many, and it
  aint easy to pick up the right one. And if there is only one, it aint
  obvious wether it will fill your quality criteria.
  My dream: a table with, for each library/module or even application,
  a note in [0:10] in front of every quality criterium. criteria?:
    completeness
    robustness
    how well tested?
    simplicity
    documentation
    maintenance team responsiveness
    usage: how many developpers picked it up and still use it? how many
    picked it up but gave it up?
  The list is an obvious oversimplification, each criterium could be
  discussed for hours. robustness, for instance, means: how well does
  it behave when illegal data is fed? A LOT of actual modules
  (comprising mine (:-) raise obscure exceptions.

the iso8601 module is simple enough, easy to install, but fails on
legal data. I guess the fix would be useful, but is it maintained? Is
it in use?
I used xml.dom.minidom, recently. Works fine, but I found the
interface awfully complicated. Right or wrong, when I had to write
some xml, I wrote my own code: better be simple, although untested,
undocumented, etc, than using a module so complicated U never finished
the learning curve...

So, my questions would be:
  - how do You, other developpers, cope with this question?
  - is there such a base, helping to pick up existing modules?
  - if no, dont U think such an initiative might be useful?
  - Those who have to deal with iso8601 dates, how do U proceed?
    Ill have a look to mxdatetime, but is it the right answer?