[Python-ideas] Increasing public package discoverability (was: Adding jsonschema to the standard library)

[Skip Montanaro]

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
> I’m of the opinion that, given a brand new language, it makes more sense to have really good packaging tools built in, but not to have a standard library.

While perhaps nice in theory, the process of getting a package into
the standard library provides a number of filters (hurdles, if you
will) through which a package much pass (or surmount) before it is
deemed suitable for broad availability by default to users, and for
support by the core development team. Today, that includes
documentation, unit tests, broad acceptance by the user community (in
many cases), and a commitment by the core development team to maintain
the package for the foreseeable future. To the best of my knowledge,
none of those filters apply to PyPI-cataloged packages. That is not to
say that the current process doesn't have its problems. Some really
useful stuff is surely not available in the core. If the core
development team was stacked with people who program numeric
applications for a living, perhaps numpy or something similar would be
in the core today.

The other end of the spectrum is Perl. It has been more than a decade
since I did any Perl programming, and even then, not much, but I still
remember how confused I was trying to choose a package to manipulate
dates and times from CPAN with no guidance. I know PyPI has a weight
field. I just went back and reread the footnote describing it, but I
really have no idea how it operates. I'm sure someone nefarious could
game that system so their security compromising package drifts toward
the top of the list. Try searching for "xml." 2208 packages are
return, with weights ranging from 1 to 9. 107 packages have weights of
8 or 9. If the standard library is to dwindle down to next-to-nothing,
a better scheme for package selection/recommendation will have to be
developed.

Skip