[Distutils] PyPI Download Counts

[holger krekel]

On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 17:41 +1000, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 5:27 PM, holger krekel <holger at merlinux.eu> wrote:
> > Not having download counts maybe lets us think harder about
> > better metrics.  The number of projects using a package as a dep
> > might be one.
> 
> With the current downside being that it's hard for PyPI to figure out
> that number, too :)

Yip.  But something like Vinaj's red-dove approach or Marius' get_deps.py
could provide a base.  We might think about a docker instance which 
could allow to quickly spawn new light VMs so we can isolate setup.py runs.
(Yes, it's only Linux but it'd be a start).

> Agreed it would be a good number to publish once it's more readily
> available, too.

I think "dep" numbers are mostly interesting for libraries, not so
much for applications like django or pyramid or tools like nose/pytest.

Another more practical data point would be "does this package even
install on win32/linux/osx py26/py27/py33" and even better, do its automated
tests pass?  If we could evolve to have this info published on pypi.python.org
it would be quite useful i think.  I am actually currently implementing
a system which enables this (the "devpi" system) so i don't mean this all just
as "nice to have" theory.  I aim to present the status of this work 
at EuroPython.  

best,
holger

> 
> Cheers,
> Nick.
> 
> --
> Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
>