[SciPy-User] Central File Exchange for Scipy

[Pauli Virtanen]

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:08:40 -0500, Jason Grout wrote:
[clip]
> Ah, you're right---I see now we may have different aims.  My original
> idea was for a project somewhere in between pastebin/gist and github in
> functionality, but also having the tagging and comments features that
> you're proposing.  Add to that a way to execute snippets, like
> http://python.codepad.org/ or the Sage notebook.  With Sage interacts,
> executing the snippets of code would allow a user to play with sliders
> and buttons to interact with Sage/Python without having to log in to a
> web notebook.
>
> So I had envisioned much more of an active development site for small
> chunks of code, rather than a repository of pointers to packages
> developed on more heavyweight development sites.

Yes, I can see the value in having a more community-like collection of 
snippets.

One thing to note is that there's no need to have a single backend or 
even the main parts of the UI shared by the snippets and the 
"catalog" (although this might some things simpler). The different 
components of the site can be loosely coupled.

It should be possible to write a tagging/per-entry-comments/etc platform 
that can be used both for the catalog and for the snippets. (Django has 
support for 'generic' foreign keys, and rendering can be done via custom 
template tags.) So even if the end result is that the snippets need a 
different storage and UI approach, there would still be a non-negligible 
amount of code that can be shared (and perhaps some could be lifted from 
djangopackages.com), because a major part of the required "community" 
features are quite similar.

Technical differences, I think, are not a reason to make two sites rather 
than one, as long as the "community" and "indexing" aspects are shared. I 
can imagine a multi-pronged approach with real python packages and 
snippets in different sections of the same site.

Having the Sage community involved here would definitely be a big synergy 
advantage for this type of a site.

[clip]
> So when you say "Hosted software", are you thinking of a PyPi type of
> site, where the release tarball might be hosted on the site, rather than
> the development repository?

Precisely so. The aim would be to make it less hassle to use than PyPi 
for a relative Python newbie. (Although uploading packages to PyPi is not 
hugely hassle-ful at the moment, as it is possible to do it using only 
the web interface.) So there would be a bit of an overlap with PyPi; one 
could however add some recommendations etc. to push people to use PyPi, 
if they are willing to jump through some extra hoops.

    ***

At the moment, one thing seems clear:

  - Pointers to externally hosted projects (& semi-automatic 
    import from PyPi)

But the following are not so clear:

  - Hosted projects -- how much to overlap with PyPi?

  - Snippets -- the Wiki or the Knol? Or both? How much overlap with
    hosted projects?


	Pauli