[Catalog-sig] Category suggestions

[Richard Jones]

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On Friday 18 Jun 2004 02:48, Ian Bicking wrote:
> Here's a list of categories that I think are unneeded, with a few
> additions as well (marked with +).

I agree with most of your changes, and I have some comments where we disagree.

I'd want to analyse whether or not anyone is using any of the topics to be 
removed.


> Generally I think a category should only exist if ...
>
> (a) Someone would say "I want something like X", where X is a category,
> or...
> (b) Having found a package, I want to know if it has property X (e.g.,
> licensing, maturity)
> (c) It can't be replace with a unamgiuous keyword, or an element of the
> description (e.g., Z39.50)
> (d) If a subcategory, a user would be genuinely interested in the
> specific subcategory, where there would be an *excess* of uninteresting
> packages in the parent category.
> (e) If not a property-based category (e.g., maturity level), it
> shouldn't apply to a significant number of the packages.  "Utilities" is
> silly.  "Python" is obvious.

I tend to agree with this. Note that the browsing functionality matches 
subcategories, allowing the packager to specify more finely what their 
package does, eg. "Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Address Book" while 
still matching "Topic :: Communications :: Email".


> With a bit more thought, it would probably be possible to trim the
> remaining categories considerably, and add in some more useful
> categories.

Agreed.


> Maybe the properties should also be removed and turned into normal
> fields.

Yes, this has come up before. I think it's a good idea, but I'm unsure about 
how to go about it. Someone has also pointed out that the license field could 
be used to include the entire license text. I'm not sure whether that's 
useful though.

For your list, I've implicitly agree to changes you proposed unless I note 
below:

+ Environment :: Embedded


> Natural Language :: English (?)

For non i18n, it's good to be explicit.


> Operating System :: OS Independent
>    (generally, the OS categories seem excessive for Python)

They can be important though.


> Programming Language :: Python
>    (well duh it uses Python)

Yeah, this section does seem silly. I guess the only important selections here 
are Python, C, C++ and Java. Perhaps C# too?


> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Address Book
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Email Clients (MUA)
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Filters
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Mail Transport Agents
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Mailing List Servers
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Post-Office
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Post-Office :: IMAP
> Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Post-Office :: POP3
> + Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Client
> + Topic :: Communications :: Email :: Server

We'd want to heelp Filters - for things like spambayes, etc.


> Topic :: Communications :: Internet Phone
> Topic :: Communications :: Telephony
>    (both?)

Technically they are separate things, but I'm not sure there's going to be 
enough packages to warrant two categories. Let's just go with Telephony.


> + Topic :: Database :: RDBMS wrappers

IMO this could be confused with the DB-API wrapper. Perhaps Object-Relational 
wrappers?


> Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Dynamic Content

Hrm - I'm not sure why you prefer Frameworks over


> Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Dynamic Content :: CGI Tools/Libraries
> Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Dynamic Content :: Message Boards
> Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Dynamic Content :: News/Diary
> Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Dynamic Content :: Page Counters
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Frameworks
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Frameworks :: CGI
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Frameworks :: mod_python
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Twisted
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Zope 2
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Zope 2 :: Products
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Zope 3
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Zope 3 :: Products
> + Topic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Content Management
>    (Actually, I'd rather rethink all of Internet)

Yes, given that Twisted and the Zopes are both more than just WWW/HTTP. I'd be 
happy to knock them back a notch:

+ Topic :: Internet :: Twisted
+ Topic :: Internet :: Zope 2
+ Topic :: Internet :: Zope 2 :: Products
+ Topic :: Internet :: Zope 3
+ Topic :: Internet :: Zope 3 :: Products


> Topic :: Office/Business :: News/Diary
>    (It's not clearn why this is Office/Business)

Yeah. I think most of the Office/Business topics could be relabelled 
"Organisational" or some similar Adjective.


> Re: Topic :: Scientific/Engineering
>    (It might be good to get input from someone who cares about this
>    area)

I can actually have a good crack at this - I'm doing a review of Field Of 
Knowledge classification systems for work. Off the top of my head, the set 
here is pretty good.


> Topic :: Software Development :: Disassemblers

decompyle?


> Topic :: Software Development :: Documentation

docutils, et al?


> Topic :: Software Development :: Object Brokering
> Topic :: Software Development :: Object Brokering :: CORBA
>    ("Object Brokering" a loaded term)

Yes, but there's a number of schemes in Python that do it.


> Topic :: Software Development :: Version Control :: RCS
> Topic :: Software Development :: Version Control :: SCCS
> + Topic :: Software Development :: Version Control :: Subversion

Do we need sub-topics? 


> Topic :: Software Development :: Widget Sets

There's a number of Python GUI implementations. I'm not sure where else they'd 
go. Perhaps we need

+ Topic :: User Interface


> Topic :: System :: Systems Administration
>    (Audience, not Topic)

I agree the subcategories could go away, but the category is useful. Audience 
and Topic are separate concepts (a package may be for system administrators, 
or it might implement system admin tools for use by other people)


> Topic :: Text Editors :: Text Processing

docutils et al?


    Richard
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