[Distutils] Package's declared latest version ignored by Warehouse

[Donald Stufft]

> On Dec 1, 2014, at 7:21 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> 
> Howdy all,
> 
> The Warehouse is ignoring the feature of PyPI which sets particular
> versions of a package visible or not visible. It makes all versions
> visible regardless.
> 
> This is a problem when, for example, a package has been uploaded but
> should not be shown by default.
> 
> An example is the ‘python-daemon’ package. At PyPI, the latest visible
> version is 1.5.5, as requested by the package maintainer. That is
> reflected as the default version shown at
> <URL:https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-daemon/>. Also, when viewing
> other versions, the “Latest version” link appears, and correctly shows
> that the latest version is 1.5.5.
> 
> But at Warehouse, the settings for which versions should be hidden are
> ignored by the application, and a different version is shown by default
> <URL:https://warehouse.python.org/project/python-daemon/>. That page
> should show version 1.5.5, as selected by the package maintainer in the
> PyPI database.

Warehouse drops support for the “hidden” setting of PyPI. For a few
reasons:

- It’s confusing
  - Package authors often think that if they hide a version it means
    it won’t be installable by pip, however the flag is UI only.
  - Package installers looking at the page expect that ``pip install foo``
    will get the version shown by default, however that might not be
    the case.
- It was somewhat of a workaround for the way the legacy UI was structured
  that no longer exists anymore. Legacy UI if you have more than one version
  unhidden instead of showing you the latest release information on /pypi/foo/
  it shows you a list of versions which you can click to get to each unhidden
  release. On Warehouse /project/foo/ always shows the latest release and there
  is also always a list to view the details for each individual release.

Can you go into some detail about what the use case is for having something other
than the latest version be the default version shown?

---
Donald Stufft
PGP: 7C6B 7C5D 5E2B 6356 A926 F04F 6E3C BCE9 3372 DCFA