[Catalog-sig] PyCon sprint report

[Richard Jones]

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[this also appears at http://www.python.org/moin/DistutilsSprint]

Some projects which saw progress during the sprint included: 

- - The implementation of PEP 314: Metadata for Python Software Packages
  v1.1 should be complete; someone who isn't involved in the
  implementation should review what's in CVS and check it against the PEP.
  Work performed at the sprint included supporting the provides, requires,
  and obsoletes metadata fields in both the distutils package and in PyPI.
  The work was performed by FredDrake, RichardJones, and AndyHarrington.
  There may be some untracked changes in AndrewKuchling's draft of PEP 314;
  these should also be checked (also, the catalog-sig archives). FredDrake
  believes that there are still some glaringly obvious metadata fields
  missing, necessitating a further revision of the package metadata
  specification.
- - RichardJones migrated the database away from the single-user sqlite
  database to a multi-user postgres one.
- - RichardJones and MartinvonLoewis worked on implementing PEP 243: Module
  Repository Upload Mechanism, supporting a package repository as part of
  PyPI. There are revisions needed to PEP 243 which haven't been written
  yet (mostly to do with cleaning up the use of the HTTP spec). FredDrake
  thinks he uploaded the first package into the live repository, a tarball
  containing ZConfig 2.2. Richard implemented the changes to the PyPI
  application, and Martin added an upload command to the distutils package
  to make it easy to add files from a command line. Uploads may also have
  an accompanying MD5 (for simple validation) and OpenPGP signature.
- - AndrewKuchling integrated work done to add XML-RPC support based on
  efforts from the ChiPy sprint. See  Ian Bicking's blog for more on the
  ChiPy work.
- - RichardJones and MichaelTwomey integrated work started at the ChiPy
  sprint to convert the PyPI web interface to use ZopePageTemplates instead
  of hard-coded HTML in the Python code. This should make it a lot easier
  to keep the logic and presentation separate. "Unit" tests using Selenium
  were also developed.
- - JohnCamara worked on some distutils bugs, and also implemented the
  ReStructuredText formatting of description fields. DavidGoodger
  implemented a couple of safety switches in docutils allowing us to turn
  off the "raw" and "include" directives.

At a separate table in the other sprint room, this suggested topic was 
addressed:

- - Phillip Eby brought up the idea of application plugins; it would be
  really nice to see this happen. He and Bob Ippolito have some  design
  notes and Bob Ippolito has begun an implementation of the runtime. In
  addition to plugins, this "Python Egg" format should be useful for
  distributing libraries and building applications (via py2exe/py2app)
  as well.

The following topics had been suggested, but were not discussed during the 
[PyConDC2005/Sprints]:

- - Installing large applications; see  Fred's post to the Distutils-SIG
  for more on this topic.
- - Defining a way to define new classes of files that can be installed.
  Zope 3 would like this for the "package-includes" files we use; it's
  likely generally useful.
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