The history of PyPI¶
Before we talk about PyPI, let’s start from a more fundamental question: How does Python know where to find a module when you import?
>>> import sys
>>> for p in sys.path:
... print(repr(p))
...
''
'/Users/uranusjr/Library/PythonUp/versions/3.6/lib/python36.zip'
'/Users/uranusjr/Library/PythonUp/versions/3.6/lib/python3.6'
'/Users/uranusjr/Library/PythonUp/versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload'
'/Users/uranusjr/Library/PythonUp/versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages'
Each entry in sys.path is a directory (or archive). Python looks for your
module in them in order until a match is found, and use it as the result.
When you install something into Python, generally they go into the
site-packages directory. Like tar xzvf or something.
Python packages¶
The PEP 241, proposed by A.M. Kuchling, introduced distutils that
standardized what a Python package is, and what it should contain. This is the
origin of setup.py, in case you wonder.
distutils allows developers to automate the packaging process of a Python
package, from a local filesystem tree to a transferrable blob (mostly a tar.gz
archive, bundled with the sdist subcommand).
A recipient, upon receiving one of these blobs, knows immediately what to do:
$ python setup.py install
Python Package Index¶
A central place to upload, exchange, download, and view Python packages. First implemented by Richard Jones in 2002 with inspiration from CPAN, with early contributions from Martin v. Löwis and Michael (Mick) Twomey.
The first PyPI is very intersting in various regards. It was online after the initial development of less a month, by one single person (Richard). Also comparing when it was developed to common technologies in a timeline fashion:
- 2000: Apache mod_python
- 2002: PyPI
- 2003: Wordpress
- 2004: PEP 333 (WSGI 1.0)
- 2005: Django
you know how ancient and poor the code base is.
Donald Stufft¶
You might notice you know no-one in the PyPI credit list. That is absolutely normal because they don’t really involve now. They are still visible figures in the Python community (especially Richard), but they don’t do the actual programming anymore.
The responsibility now falls on Donald Stufft. With PyPI going through multiple changes during the years to update the techonology behind it (it now runs on WSGI with mod_wsgi on Apache), even its original creaters might not be able to understand it anymore. Only Donald.
By “dev team” you mean me, because there is no dev team, It’s just me. Coincidentally there’s no real ops team either, there’s me and when he has time Ernest. In addition, I’m not so much “actively avoiding” the issue as I am just seriously overloaded. Not only am I the primary/only person keeping PyPI going, I’m also one of the main driving forces behind pip (though thankfully that has additional folks working on it too! Not with as much “available” time to dedicate to it though) and one of the main driving forces behind working through a variety of PEPs to try and improve packaging as a whole and the primary developer of a PyPI 2.0 that will hopefully replace this decade old rotted code base that we call PyPI.
By Ernest he meant Ernest W. Durbin III, by the way.