[DB-SIG] Current status of Gadfly

[Moore, Paul]

From: Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin@mems-exchange.org>
> On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 03:08:32PM +0200, Magnus Lyck?
> wrote:
>
> >IMHO a CPAN work-alike would be worth much more than all
> >the new spiffy features in Python 2.2! But I guess it's
> >less fun... :-( Vault of Parnassus
>
> Suchandra Thapa posted a prototype to the catalog-sig back
> in September, and so far exactly zero public comments have
> been made about. While people *talk* a lot about how nice
> a catalog would be, deep down I think they don't really
> care.

You can read that fact two ways. On the one hand, no-one really cares enough
to put in a lot of effort polishing and perfecting the proposals that get
made. This is a bad thing, sure. But on the other hand, it also means that
people are pragmatic - they don't care about *perfecting* the proposal, they
just want something practical, that works. I suspect that if Suchandra
simply implemented his proposal, and publicised it, and worked at grabbing
as many modules as he could and putting them into his catalog, then it would
work, and take off. But that requires one person's commitment and time (and
web space).

The thing that sometimes saddens me about the Python community is how so
many good ideas stagnate because there is too much design and not enough
implementation. Of course, I don't implement anything, so my comments can't
be seen as anything other than heckling from the peanut gallery :-)

BTW, if you wish, you may interpret this message as enthusiastic support for
Suchandra's prototype. It is. I haven't used it - I don't read the catalog
SIG - but I am strongly in favour of anything in this area. Perl's CPAN
isn't perfect - heck, in many ways it's dreadful - but people still point to
it as a shining example of how to do things. Parnassus isn't ideal, but
still loads of people use it. And as a basis for measuring alternatives,
it's often quoted (earlier in this thread, we had the comment "Vault of
Parnassus is a Good Thing, but we need something with...") Lack of comments
doesn't always mean lack of interest - number of users is the only real
measure, and proposals don't have users...

Sorry - this touched a nerve.

Paul.