[ZODB-Dev] SpatialIndex

[Nitro]

Am 28.06.2010, 14:10 Uhr, schrieb Dylan Jay <djay at pretaweb.com>:

> I don't use a lot of other indexes other than what comes with plone but  
> I can see the value of what your suggesting in having an installable  
> tested collection of indexes. I can also see that this is a really big  
> itch for you and you've already identified a bunch of candidates to  
> include. So why not go the next step and create a package that's nothing  
> more than requires specifications and release it with versions  
> corresponding to zodb releases. Then others may find it useful and help  
> you support it. And if it's really popular it may even get taken into  
> consideration with zodb packaging. Who knows?

Thanks for your feedback, Dylan.

My main problem is not the lack of an index collection. It's one of the  
problems I faced, but not the main one. Indexing is just a small part of  
working with a database.

The main problem (imo) is that there are already >50 zodb related packages  
on pypi and none of them gathered a lot of people working on them. I don't  
see why this should be any different if I publish yet another package.  
Especially if most people use plone and the built-in indices. Just look at  
what happened to ZCatalog Standalone.

Here's a little metaphor for what I'm trying to say:

Once upon a time there was a man who wanted to go to the bakery to buy a  
bread. He thought "I'll be done with this quickly, after all many people  
want to buy a bread". So he went off to visit the ZBakery.
When asking for a bread, the people in the ZBakery told him there's no  
need to sell whole breads. They said: "See, we have all the ingredients  
here so you can make a bread suiting your own taste. Look, there's ZFlour,  
ZMilk and ZSalt. And if you rummage the corners of this bakery, you'll  
also might find ZFlour2, CustomFlour and MyOwnCoolFlour. We don't know if  
they are any good, because each flour is used by just one or two people.".  
The man thought about it for a while and went off to try the different  
flours. When he wanted to try the CustomFlour it did not work. It turned  
out this was because CustomFlour relied on 3rdPartyMill and 3rdPartyMill  
had a problem, so CustomFlour was broken. The man shaked his head after he  
realized a few dozen people already tried to get CustomFlour and nobody  
pointed out the problem to its producer. Finding out about all of this  
took the whole morning and so he finally made lunch break.
After his lunch break was over he finally found a flour suiting his bread  
he went off to look at the different milks and salts. He experienced  
similar problems there. One of the milks had just a label "milk" on it,  
the other areas of the packaging were blank. The man had no idea if the  
milk in question would work for his bread or not. So he had to analyze the  
contents of the milk to see if it might be useful. It turned out the milk  
was mislabeled and not a milk.
As the sun was already touching the horizon and the air was getting cold  
the man ignored the milk for the time being and went looking for salt. He  
did not have to search for long and was delighted to find a single salt  
which would just work.
When the man looked out of a window of the ZBakery he saw it was already  
dark and went home. When lying in bed he thought to himself: "All I wanted  
to have this morning was a bread. Now I'm about to fall asleep and still  
don't have one. The bakery even had all the ingredients! But why did they  
made me try and analyze each ingredient? I even would've taken a bread  
which tasted a bit worse then the bread which I now have to bake on my  
own. The other customers of ZBakery surely also want breads, rolls and  
cake. Aren't they interested in creating a standard package of breads,  
rolls and cake? If they'd work together on a single bread, they'd all  
benefit from the improved recipes. New customers would immediately notice  
that there's a good default bread which many people like. These customers  
might point their colleagues at ZBakery, because it sells tasty,  
ready-to-use breads. If there was a special customer he could still bake  
his own bread using the individual ingredients."
Pondering all these things he slided into a deep sleep. When he woke up  
the next morning he found a handful of committed people who had gathered  
in the ZBakery to bake and sell their first bread together...

-Matthias