[Catalog-sig] UI for managing catalog

[Andrew Kuchling]

On Sat, Nov 18, 2000 at 02:45:38AM +0200, Moshe Zadka wrote:
>Could you start a list of open questions that we need to answer before
>starting to implement something?

>* Registration/package uploading interface
>* Mirroring interface
>* How to seperate the meta-data from the content -- in the Debian system,
>  e.g., each node has a complete copy of all meta-data locally. An "update"
>  operation updates it. Quite likely, the meta-data file will change a lot,
>  but requiring mirrors to generate it themselves is unrealistic.
>* Completing meta-data: among other things, how to specify dependancies
>  on non-Python packages? (e.g., zlib)

I've given my opinion for most of these issues in previous postings: 
1) file uploads and automated retrieval from your download site 
2) mirroring through something simple like wget 
3) not previously discussed -- I don't know.
4) avoiding dependencies for now because it's a rat's nest of issues

>* What format will the packages be in? I recommend specifying *one* *standard*
>  *format*, and if at all possible, make sure Python 2.1 supports it natively.

.tar.gz and .zip seem like the two natural choices -- .tar.gz for
Unix, .zip for Windows people.  Luckily code is available to read both
of these formats.

>* How do we handle collisions between package names/module names? Unlike Perl,
>  Python has the problem that if there is a module "foo" there cannot be a 
>  module "foo.bar" too.

Unique naming; it's called mxODBC, for example, even though its
package name is ODBC or, soon, mx.ODBC.

>* Who do we think will host the master archive? (Alternatives: SF, DC...) 

Beats me; at the moment I'd rather work on a strawman implementation
and worry about long-term hosting later.

--amk