Python Packages : A looming problem? packages might no longer work? (well not on your platform or python version anyway)

[David Lyon]

Hi Steven,

You make some good points...

Let me try to answer them..

> Why is it the responsibility of the Python language to provide such a
> testing infrastructure?

First define "Python language". 

Ok... we know it as the core interpretor. But to the developer it is also
all the packages that everybody has contributed.

The "Python language" is the interpretor and all the packages the
"community" has put together.

> Why? Why should every package on PyPI need to support all those Python
> versions? That should be the decision of the package maintainer. If they
> want to support every version of Python back to 1.0, they can, and if
> they want to only support version 2.5 that's fine too.

Why shouldn't packages support more than one python version?

Looking at it conversely....

Why should the package developer dictacte which python version the package
will run on ?

> For all we know, three quarters of the
> packages on PyPI have never been tested *at all*.

Right. Why not run some tests....

> What's the dire problem you are trying to
> solve? 

Backward and forward compatability of python package resources.

> What "Super-Computers" do you know of that run Python?

Google. Amazon web services..

> Who is paying for this?

>From as little as $30 per month. Funding isn't so much the issue.

>> With this basic structure, a daily building/testing infrastructure
>> working across the different versions of python and operating systems,
>> could easily become a reality.
> 
> Oh yeah, "easily".

pypi_packagelist = getallpypipackages()

for package in pypi_packagelist:
    testpackageonallplatforms(package)

Best Regards

David