[Python-Dev] PEP 376 proposed changes for basic plugins support

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:28:07 +0200
"M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Don't forget system packaging tools like .deb, .rpm, etc., which do not
> > generally take kindly to updating such things.  For better or worse, the
> > filesystem *is* our "central database" these days.
> 
> I don't think that's a problem: the SQLite database would be a cache
> like e.g. a font cache or TCSH command cache, not a replacement of
> the meta files stored in directories.
> 
> Such a database would solve many things at once: faster access to
> the meta-data of installed packages, fewer I/O calls during startup,
> more flexible ways of doing queries on the meta-data, needed for
> introspection and discovery, etc.

If the cache can become stale because of system package management
tools, how do you avoid I/O calls while checking that the database is
fresh enough at startup?

Regards

Antoine.