Right now the PyPI codebase seems to have a bus number[1] of one:
Martin, who is apparently the only person who really understands the
code well enough to do significant work on it. This is something which
could be remedied by having more people learn the code and get
familiar enough with it to make contributions, but that's complicated
by the fact that PyPI still does so much basically from scratch -- it
doesn't even use the standard gateway interface Python web developers
are expected to be familiar with, much less any well-known libraries.
There are several ways to run PyPI, including WSGI, FCGI, CGI, and a
stand-alone server. The mode which is used on PyPI just happens to be FCGI.
I'm not sure how the integration with Apache matters - the actual code
generating web pages is the same all the time, no matter what gateway
interface is being used.
As for the bus number: Richard Jones is also familiar with the code, as
he wrote it in the first place. He just didn't contribute much lately.
I believe Tarek is also knowledgable. So the bus factor is rather 3.
As to *what* it should be rewritten with, I frankly don't care so long
as it's something reasonably well-known and well-understood within the
broader Python web community, and speaks WSGI (which is essentially
the same thing, but it needs to be said).
I don't really want to "sell" the code base, but just for the record:
It's written "in" WSGI, Zope Page Templates, and Postgres. These are
all things that are well-understood in the Python web community.
That gives all sorts of
options, from a lightweight stack on something like Werkzeug all the
way up to a full framework solution with something like Pylons. To
avoid the perennial holy wars that choice seems to engender, though,
I'd suggest just asking Martin to pick something he feels he'd be
comfortable with, and having everyone else who wants to help shut up
and go with his choice.
It would be really up to Richard Jones, and he said he would prefer
Django; so do I.
Regards,
Martin
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