Am 16.06.2010, 17:55 Uhr, schrieb Jim Fulton <j...@zope.com>: > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Nitro <ni...@dr-code.org> wrote: > ... >> Would it make sense to add a default spatial index to ZODB? > > No. > > Which isn't to say that a spatial wouldn't be a good idea. It just > doesn't need to be part of ZODB. While it isn't an urgent priority, > in the future, I want to make ZODB smaller. > > We have a packaging system. We don't need no stink'n batteries > included. :)
I agree with you about separating ZODB and an indexing package on the technical level. I was more referring to the semantical level. What I miss a bit in the zodb/zope/plone world is a focus on certain packages. Usually there are 1-10 packages for a given task maintained by different people. In most of the cases this is a plain waste of resources. Time could often be better spent by picking a good default package and then collaborating together to improve it. Imo this also applies to ZODB. During my current zodb related work, I've come across a number of useful or interesting packages: - indexing: zcatalog, zcatalog standalone, IndexedCatalog - spatial indexing: zgeo.spatialindex, Quadtree - searching/relations: gocept.objectquery, dm.incrementalsearch , zc.relation, zc.relationship, gocept.reference - storage history: zc.beforestorage, dm.historical, [zc.vault] - schema evolution: repoze.evolution, zope.app.generations - types: zc.blist, PersistentList, OOTreeSet, zc.queue - there are probably more duplicates... - many useful packages like zc.zodbgc which have no duplicate Each time I have to go and read through all the documentation (if there is any decent documentation) and then decide if I will use it or not. Often the differences are minor. Sometimes I just stumble across the packages just by accident. Sometimes stuff is out-of-date. Rather often the packaging system breaks, because the .eggs are broken/outdated. Why do I have to accidentally discover that there's a zc.zodbgc module to pack cross reference databases if zodb core allows me to create cross references? What indexing package do I choose? Is that package now for zope, plone or zodb? In my opinion it would make sense to have a ZODB core package and then a second package which installs all the commonly used modules. Just like python is not very useful without the standard library. I know the modules in pythons standard library are good, tested and maintained. Many people use them, I can find docs and help. The zodb standard library should have a default package for indexing/searching. One for basic data types like lists, sets and trees. One for managing history, ... . The zodb standard library should then be endorsed by this list/maintainers so everybody knows where the focus is. And so I knows who's working on which things, so I can possibly collaborate with people. The excessive use of packages (on the semantic level) splits a small developer community into even smaller pieces and makes collaboration hard to impossible. Imo this is also one of the reasons for zodb's weak documentation. For a start the standard library could be a package which pulls all commonly useful, up-to-date 3rd party packages into one place. Please don't take this as a bashing of any sorts, after all I am still using ZODB. I just wanted to show you my thoughts after a few weeks in the zodb/plone universe and hope they can be used in a constructive way. -Matthias _______________________________________________ For more information about ZODB, see the ZODB Wiki: http://www.zope.org/Wikis/ZODB/ ZODB-Dev mailing list - ZODB-Dev@zope.org https://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zodb-dev
