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Everything to like

Everything to like

Posted Mar 29, 2005 22:51 UTC (Tue) by mwh (subscriber, #582)
In reply to: Everything to like by b7j0c
Parent article: Evidence that Python is advancing into the enterprise (NewsForge)

There is movement in this area...


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Everything to like

Posted Mar 30, 2005 6:05 UTC (Wed) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link]

God I hope not. CPAN is a wasteland of crap modules. Unmaintained or so poorly written as to be dangerous for use. You end up with developers deciding to use the latest Nth version of some misc module that the maintainer has decided to drop. I'd rather have 10% the modules but well maintained, consistent and API stable. Using CPAN is a recipe for disaster when you're trying to maintain a sensible system. And let's not even talk about trying to remain consistent with a packaging system when using cpan modules.

-sv

Everything to like

Posted Mar 30, 2005 7:31 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

So because modules can become unmaintained we should have no central repository for modules that not everyone needs?

I smell a massive non sequitur.

Everything to like

Posted Mar 30, 2005 13:55 UTC (Wed) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link]

> So because modules can become unmaintained we should have no central
> repository for modules that not everyone needs?

>I smell a massive non sequitur.

No, I just do not think CPAN is an answer to any set of problems. It's a disorganized mass of poorly maintained software. And all that it encourages is the use of obscure, unmaintained modules to solve problems with questionably exist.

I smell someone who has never maintained a system populated with these godforsaken items.

-sv

Everything to like

Posted Mar 30, 2005 17:08 UTC (Wed) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link]

no, you're way off.

first name the broken modules.

second tell me how this invalidates a well built tool (CPAN.pm) for installing packages from the network.

third, tell me how a broken package invalidates the vast majority of excellent modules.

fourth tell me how NOT having a central repository assures me that python modules will be of higher quality. by the way telling me that you never need or use stuff outside of the core distribution is not one of the choices, sooner or later everyone needs 3rd party code.

i have seen this logic before from some python people - the fact that there is a broken module on CPAN invalidates the entire effort, and somehow not having a parallel effort insures a higher quality and availability of code for python.

look, i like python but the lack of a central repository and tools to address this repository is something that needs to be addressed.

Everything to like

Posted Mar 30, 2005 14:05 UTC (Wed) by edomaur (subscriber, #14520) [Link]

Yes, I think too. There is already the Eggs project (http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/PythonEggs) which some parts are already agreed upon by Guido and others. I think this goes in the right direction.

Now, about the indentation, I have encounter many times the Lost Tab Character problem. I hate positively when people use tabs in there source code, it always ensure that at one time, the layout of the code goes full crap & trash. Since it is pratically impossible to convince hard boiled programmers to use spaces chars only, in Python it could be the death of the project. I do not know if there is an util to solidify the indentation, or if there is anything to do except firing the programmers..

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