Python Packages sprint on Sunday 4/10/2011

Want to help Python? Want to encourage PyPI to focus on being the best package index system possible and not a catalog/ratings/documentation engine? Then sprint with us on Packaginator this weekend because...

We need your help!

In my last blog post I mentioned Packaginator which will power the forthcoming Python Packages site. The purpose of this site is to do for Python what Django Packages does for Django. We aren't quite ready for launch, and the purpose of this post is to list what tasks remains. There is an enormous amount of outstanding work, and we want to launch as soon as possible so...

Before I begin, Python Packages will have some dramatic differences from Django Packages:

• The 'Add Package' controls won't exist. The only way to get a package into the site is to put your package onto PyPI.
• At launch only approved moderators will be able to create new grids and grid features.
• Only approved moderators and package owners will be able to edit the target repo URLs and add/edit/remove packages on grids.
• Users will still be able to click the "I use this" button. 

Please join us!

We invite you to sprint with us on Sunday, April 10, 2011. We are sprinting on Python Packages / Packaginator from the Los Angles OS Hackathon this weekend but also invite remote sprinters to join us from across the globe.

How to participate

How to contribute to Packaginator is really well documented and I beg you to read that before commencing any sort of work. We don't use IRC to communicate, instead relying on our convore channel at http://convore.com/packaginator.

Because we can, have, and will reject pull requests, I need to reiterate a few things:

• Run the test suite before you submit your pull request
• Keep your pull requests small and focused
• Be familiar with PEP-8 and keep your code simple

Important: Because we are "this close to launch", for Sunday we aren't the least bit interested in dramatic architecture revisions, model changes, obfuscating our settings, new design, different layouts, or adding Haystack. We'll consider those afterwards.

Tickets

Priority tickets are the real choke points that we want to overcome. We could use help on all of them:

• Low hanging fruit tasks
• Challenging tasks
• Priority tasks

When you start a ticket, please let us know in http://convore.com/packaginator so we can mark it as assigned in the Github issue tracking system or warn you if it is already being worked.

Launch

We hope to launch this sunday or in the immediate days afterwards, and for that Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Jacob Burch, and Noah Kantrowitz  have graciously volunteered their time to do the engineering work.