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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
Brian Curtin wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 14:13, Kenneth Reitz <me@kennethreitz.com> wrote:
>> I think the cheesehop trove classifiers would be the ideal way to
>> agnostically link to a page of packages related to the standard package in
>> question. No need for sort order.
>
> Randomize the order for all I care. We still need to ensure we're
> suggesting quality projects. It doesn't make sense for us to suggest
> alternatives that we wouldn't want to use ourselves by just polling
> some list that anyone can get on.

"Need" is awfully strong. I don't believe it is the responsibility of the
standard library to be judge and reviewer of third party packages that it
doesn't control.

-1 on adding *any* sort of recommendations about third-party software except,
at most, a case-by-case basis where absolutely necessary.

What problem are we actually trying to solve here? Do we think that there are
users who really have no clue where to find 3rd party software AND don't know
how to use Google, BUT read the Python docs? I find it difficult to believe
that there are people who both read the docs and are so clueless that they
need to be told that there are alternatives available and which they should be
using.

Personally I think this is a solution in search of a problem. Judging by the
python-tutor mailing list, even *beginners* know that they aren't limited to
the stdlib and how to go about finding third party software. There are many
more questions about PyGame and wxPython than there are about tkinter. There
are plenty of questions about numpy. There are lots of questions about niche
packages I'd never even heard of.

I simply don't think there is any evidence that there are appreciable numbers
of Python coders, beginners or expert, who need to be told about third party
software. Who are these people we're trying to reach out to?


> This is documentation that receives hundreds of thousands of views a
> month*. We need to be picky about what goes in it.

Exactly why we should be wary of recommending specific packages.

Should we recommend wxPython over Pyjamas or PyGUI or PyGtk? On what basis?
Whatever choice we make is going to be wrong for some people, and is
potentially unfair to the maintainers of the packages left out. Should we
recommend them all? That's no help to anyone. Make no recommendation at all?
That's the status quo.

What counts as "best of breed" can change rapidly -- software churn is part of
the reason that the packages aren't in the stdlib in the first place. It can
also be a matter of taste and convention. There are a few non-brainers, like
numpy, but everything else, no, let's not open this can of worms.

I can see no benefit to this suggestion, and all sorts of ways that this might
go badly.



--
Steven

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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On Mar 14, 2012 5:27 AM, "Antoine Pitrou" <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:16:40 -0700
> Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> wrote:
> > > Authors of separately maintained packages are, from our viewpoint, as
> > > eligible to help with tracker issues as anyone else, even while they
> > > continue work on their external package. Some of them are more likely
than
> > > most contributors to have the knowledge needed for some particular
issues.
> >
> > This is a good idea. I was chatting w. Senthil this morning about
> > adding improvements to urllib/request.py based upon ideas from
> > urllib3, requests, httplib2 (?), and we came to the conclusion that it
> > might be a good idea to let those packages' authors review the
> > proposed stdlib improvements.
>
> We don't have any provisions against reviewal by third-party
> developers already. I think the main problem (for us, of course) is that
> these people generally aren't interested enough to really dive in
> stdlib patches and proposals.
>
> For example, for the ssl module, I have sometimes tried to involve
> authors of third-party packages such as pyOpenSSL (or, IIRC, M2Crypto),
> but I got very little or no reviewing.

Rather than indicating apathy on the party of third party developers, this
might be a sign that core Python is unapproachable or not worth the effort.

For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches ignored,
but it happens.
Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
> Rather than indicating apathy on the party of third party developers, this
> might be a sign that core Python is unapproachable or not worth the effort.
>
> For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
> how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches ignored,
> but it happens.
>

A one-line patch for a complex module or piece of code may require
much more than looking at that single line to really review. I hope
you understand that.

That said, if you find any issues in the bug tracker that in your
opinion need only a few minutes of attention from a core developer,
feel free to send a note to the mentorship mailing list. People
sometimes come there asking for precisely this thing (help reviewing a
simple patch they submitted), and usually get help quickly if their
request is justified.

Eli
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
Thanks for the suggestions.
On Mar 14, 2012 12:03 PM, "Eli Bendersky" <eliben@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Rather than indicating apathy on the party of third party developers,
> this
> > might be a sign that core Python is unapproachable or not worth the
> effort.
> >
> > For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
> > how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches
> ignored,
> > but it happens.
> >
>
> A one-line patch for a complex module or piece of code may require
> much more than looking at that single line to really review. I hope
> you understand that.
>
> That said, if you find any issues in the bug tracker that in your
> opinion need only a few minutes of attention from a core developer,
> feel free to send a note to the mentorship mailing list. People
> sometimes come there asking for precisely this thing (help reviewing a
> simple patch they submitted), and usually get help quickly if their
> request is justified.
>
> Eli
>
Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:55:35 +1100
Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
>
> What problem are we actually trying to solve here? Do we think that there are
> users who really have no clue where to find 3rd party software AND don't know
> how to use Google, BUT read the Python docs? I find it difficult to believe
> that there are people who both read the docs and are so clueless that they
> need to be told that there are alternatives available and which they should be
> using.

I find it quite easy to believe myself. Many people will learn some
Python by reading the docs, without knowing the rest of the ecosystem.

So, yes, publicizing the widely accepted alternatives (such as Twisted
for asyncore) *is* helpful.

(that doesn't mean any shiny new gadget must be advocated, though;
third-party libraries should be mature enough before we start
mentioning them)

> Should we recommend wxPython over Pyjamas or PyGUI or PyGtk? On what basis?

You don't have to recommend anything. Just mention them.
You know what, we *already* do that job:
http://docs.python.org/dev/library/othergui.html#other-gui-packages

Regards

Antoine.


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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:31:34 +0800
Matt Joiner <anacrolix@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Rather than indicating apathy on the party of third party developers, this
> might be a sign that core Python is unapproachable or not worth the effort.
>
> For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
> how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches ignored,
> but it happens.

Can you give a pointer to these one-liners?
Once a patch gets a month old or older, it tends to disappear from
everyone's radar unless you somehow "ping" on the tracker, or post a
message to the mailing-list.

(of course, you shouldn't spam the list with open issues either)

Thanks

Antoine.
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
> > For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
> > how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches ignored,
> > but it happens.
>
> Can you give a pointer to these one-liners?

Almost a one-liner, but vast knowledge required (how do you prove that
using (freefunc) is safe if it's the first usage in the tree?).

http://bugs.python.org/file21610/atexit-leak.patch


I think there are many issues like that one where the implications
of a short patch can only be assessed by small number of committers.


Stefan Krah


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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:58:10 +0100
Stefan Krah <stefan@bytereef.org> wrote:
> Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
> > > For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
> > > how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches ignored,
> > > but it happens.
> >
> > Can you give a pointer to these one-liners?
>
> Almost a one-liner, but vast knowledge required (how do you prove that
> using (freefunc) is safe if it's the first usage in the tree?).
>
> http://bugs.python.org/file21610/atexit-leak.patch

Well, can you please post a URL to the issue itself?

Thanks

Antoine.


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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
Stefan Krah wrote:
> Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
>>> For instance I have several one line patches languishing, I can't imagine
>>> how disappointing it would be to have significantly larger patches ignored,
>>> but it happens.
>> Can you give a pointer to these one-liners?
>
> Almost a one-liner, but vast knowledge required (how do you prove that
> using (freefunc) is safe if it's the first usage in the tree?).
>
> http://bugs.python.org/file21610/atexit-leak.patch
>

But how do you find issues?

I want to do some reviews, but I don't want to wade through issues on
components I know little or nothing about in order to find the ones I
can review.

There does not seem to be a way to filter search results in the tracker.

Cheers,
Mark
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
> > Almost a one-liner, but vast knowledge required (how do you prove that
> > using (freefunc) is safe if it's the first usage in the tree?).
> >
> > http://bugs.python.org/file21610/atexit-leak.patch
>
> Well, can you please post a URL to the issue itself?

That sounds like an excellent plan. :)


http://bugs.python.org/issue11826


Stefan Krah


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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:05:11 -0000, Mark Shannon <mark@hotpy.org> wrote:
> But how do you find issues?
>
> I want to do some reviews, but I don't want to wade through issues on
> components I know little or nothing about in order to find the ones I
> can review.
>
> There does not seem to be a way to filter search results in the tracker.

Is the advanced search ('search' link on left hand side) missing
some filtering capabilities?

--David
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
Hello,

2012/3/13 Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Brian Curtin <brian@python.org> wrote:
>> Downloads don't mean the code is good. Voting is gamed. I really don't
>> think there's a good automated solution to tell us what the
>> high-quality replacement projects are.
>
> Sure, these are imperfect metrics. But not having any metrics at all
> is flawed too. Despite the huge flamewar we had 1-2 years ago about
> PyPI comments, I think we should follow the lead of the many app
> stores that pop up on the web -- users will recognize the pattern and
> will tune their skepticism sensors as needed.
>

unittest and functional testing are obctive metrics.

It it passes a unittest, and it has the same API, therefore it is a
legitimate replacement for the stdlib. If a benchmark is also given
that can be considered **not biased** and faster it is pretty neat.
(but why not contribute to stdlib then?)

Functional testing is however a little more tricky, subjective and
interesting. Since stdlib replacements are mostl functionnaly
equivalent (like requests) of one or more stdlib module and that is
what people are searching for.
People willing to be considered compliant with some functionalities of
a stdlib would have to give example of porting from libA to libB plus
the given *functionnal tests*.

An interesting point may also be PEP compliance. (it is sometimes a
tedious tasks when playing with SA to know if a python package of a
DBDriver is DB-API 2.0 compliant).

This would make pypi even greater if package maintainers added these
metadata (implements, functions_like, pep_compliance) in their
setup.py given they comply with the logic. And it would pretty much
automate the search for alternative to stdlib.

The huge problem is how to trust that maintainers are self disciplined
enough, willing, and have enough knowledge to tag their packages
properly, plus what is the extra strain on code and infrastructure to
automate this ?

Without these informations we may become like senior java developpers
whose greatests skills are not coding, but knowing in a wide
ecosystems of packages which one are
revelant/reliable/compatible/stable. (needle in a haystack)

Maybe the answer is not one of code but one of trend setting and Noise
Signal Ratio on python hubs. (http://www.pythonmeme.com/,
http://planet.python.org/, http://pypi.org (and still in a lesser way
of classification)).



Cheers,
--
Julien Tayon
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
> Can you give a pointer to these one-liners?
> Once a patch gets a month old or older, it tends to disappear from
> everyone's radar unless you somehow "ping" on the tracker, or post a
> message to the mailing-list.

All of these can be verified with a few minutes of checking the
described code paths.

http://bugs.python.org/issue13839
http://bugs.python.org/issue13872
http://bugs.python.org/issue12684
http://bugs.python.org/issue13694

Thanks
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:26:09 +0800
Matt Joiner <anacrolix@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Can you give a pointer to these one-liners?
> > Once a patch gets a month old or older, it tends to disappear from
> > everyone's radar unless you somehow "ping" on the tracker, or post a
> > message to the mailing-list.
>
> All of these can be verified with a few minutes of checking the
> described code paths.
>
> http://bugs.python.org/issue13839
> http://bugs.python.org/issue13872
> http://bugs.python.org/issue12684
> http://bugs.python.org/issue13694

Thanks. You did get some comments and answers on some of these issues,
though (especially on http://bugs.python.org/issue13872 ).

Regards

Antoine.
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Re: Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
On 3/14/2012 6:05 AM, Mark Shannon wrote:

> But how do you find issues?

It takes some practice. Since you patched core component dict, I tried
All text: dict and Components: Interpreter Core. (Leave default Status:
open as is.) 51 issues. Add Keyword: needs review. 0 issues. Whoops,
seems not to be used. Change to Keyword: patch. 31 issues. That seems
like a manageable number of titles to 'wade through', middle clicking
ones that seem promising to open in a new tab.

> I want to do some reviews, but I don't want to wade through issues on
> components I know little or nothing about in order to find the ones I
> can review.

If you want more help, ask me here or privately. I am probably better at
searching than fixing.

> There does not seem to be a way to filter search results in the tracker.

I am not sure what you mean as there are multiple search fields. The
basic text box is, admittedly, limited in that it combines multiple
words with AND, with no other choices. An OR search requires multiple
searches. Exclusion is not possible that I know of, and perhaps that is
what you meant. The other fields that seem most useful to me are Stage,
Type, Components, and Status.

--
Terry Jan Reedy

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Docs of weak stdlib modules should encourage exploration of 3rd-party alternatives [ In reply to ]
In http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-March/117570.html
Steven D'Aprano posted:

> "Need" is awfully strong. I don't believe it is the responsibility
> of the standard library to be judge and reviewer of third party
> packages that it doesn't control.

It is, however, user-friendly to indicate when the stdlib selections
are particularly likely to be for reasons other than "A bunch of
experts believe this is the best way to do this." Cpython's
documentation is (de facto) the documentation for python in
general, and pointing people towards other resources (particularly
pypi itself) is quite reasonable.

Many modules are in the stdlib in part because they are an *acceptable*
way of doing something, and the "best" ways are either changing too
quickly or are so complicated that it doesn't make sense to burden
the *standard* libary for specialist needs. In those cases, I do
think the documentation should say so.

Specific examples:

http://docs.python.org/library/numeric.html quite reasonably has
subsections only for what ships with Python. But I think the
introductory paragraph could stand to have an extra sentence
explaining why and when people should look beyond the stanard
library, such as:

Applications centered around mathematics may benefit from
specialist 3rd party libraries, such as
numpy < http://pypi.python.org/pypi/numpy/ >,
gmpy < http://pypi.python.org/pypi/gmpy >, and
scipy< http://pypi.python.org/pypi/scipy >.


I would add a similar sentence to the web section, or the
internet protocols section if web is still not broken out
separately. http://docs.python.org/dev/library/internet.html

Note that some web conventions are still evolving too quickly
for covenient encapsulation in a stable library. Many
applications will therefore prefer functional replacements
from third parties, such as requests or httplib2, or
frameworks such as Django and Zope. www-related products
can be found by browsing PyPI for top internet subtopic www/http.
< http://pypi.python.org/pypi?:action=browse&c=319&c=326 >

[.I think that searching by classifier -- which first requires browse,
and can't be reached from the list of classifiers -- could be improved.]


> Should we recommend wxPython over Pyjamas or PyGUI or PyGtk?

Actually, I think the existing http://docs.python.org/library/othergui.html
does a pretty good job; I would not object to adding mentions of
other tools as well, but wiki reference is probably sufficient.


-jJ

--

If there are still threading problems with my replies, please
email me with details, so that I can try to resolve them. -jJ

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