[Python-Dev] PEP 376 proposed changes for basic plugins support

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

On Aug 3, 2010, at 4:28 AM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

> I don't think that's a problem: the SQLite database would be a cache
> like e.g. a font cache or TCSH command cache, not a replacement of
> the meta files stored in directories.
> 
> Such a database would solve many things at once: faster access to
> the meta-data of installed packages, fewer I/O calls during startup,
> more flexible ways of doing queries on the meta-data, needed for
> introspection and discovery, etc.

This is exactly what Twisted already does with its plugin cache, and the previously-cited ticket in this thread should expand the types of metadata which can be obtained about plugins.

Packaging systems are perfectly capable of generating and updating such metadata caches, but various packages of Twisted (Debian's especially) didn't read our documentation and kept moving around the place where Python source files were installed, which routinely broke the post-installation hooks and caused all kinds of problems.

I would strongly recommend looping in the Python packaging teams from various distros *before* adding another such cache, unless you want to be fielding bugs from Launchpad.net for five years :).

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