• PackagingWG
• 2020-01-29-pip

pip syncup meeting

UX Bernard, Sumana, Georgia 29 Jan 2020

• Go through the UX issues (from the wiki) and make sure that we understand each of them
  • BT/GB do it later in detail.
  • Simply Secure to review the tickets and write notes in the wiki
• Understand the tagging system etc
  • later - do in detail, maybe Zulip
• Scheduling a telephone call with the maintainers
  • to understand "how does pip work"
    • Bernard read:

      • start with https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/development/getting-started/

      • https://www.pypa.io/en/latest/presentations/

      • https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/development/architecture/

      • Also read https://www.b-list.org/weblog/2020/jan/05/packaging/

      • ask (better) questions to dev
    • can we be onboarded as new-contributors
  • their understanding of users issues and frustrations
• Talk about collaboration modes, e.g. longer term work, shorter term needs

  • Zulip & irc: Are there connected rooms? What rooms/streams are the right rooms?

    • IRC is popular in the community, usually on freenode
    • #debian-python on OFTC where some people are
    • community/outreach/office hours: spend time in IRC to community (but also see "User Interviews / Participant Outreach" section below)
    • devs/maintainers: comms via Zulip

    • Can connect an irc client to Zulip > Sumana will send to Bernard, but also look for that and see if you can find the tool

      • Pradyun, barging in on these notes: PSF's zulip instance seems to have "IRC" stream with the "#python-dev" topic, watching Freenode's #python-dev.
• PIP!
  • pip download packages
  • setuptools -- part of making a package

  • twine > uploadibg package to to pypi website

  • warehouse > drives the db for pypi website

  • Sumana has been sheparding all devs into zulip (not all are there yet)
  • Bernard rtfm pip readme
  • check out chat.zulip.org - Zulip about

• GitHub: Can we have a UX project or some tags in some way on GitHub so we're in the same ecosystem? Should we just use the packaging-problems repo as our main place on GitHub? can we use issues in that repo: https://github.com/pypa/packaging-problems/issues?

  • Go ahead and use pypa/packaging-problems.
• User Interviews / Participant Outreach
  • OK to go ahead and start doing outreach?
    • pass the recruitment content via Sumana and she'll give us feedback about direct to or via Sumana
  • Or should we go via Sumana/PyFo to start talking to potential users?
  • Where should/can we discuss this outreach?
  • Below are some places to start.
    • mailing lists

      • https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/python-virtualenv

      • https://discuss.python.org/ , in particular "Packaging" on discuss.python.org <https://discuss.python.org/c/packaging> but also the Users area

      • https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list a general list mentioned on https://www.python.org/community/lists/

      • https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/distutils-sig.python.org/ Distutils-SIG on mail.python.org

      • various venues for PyPA contributor/maintainer communication include pypa-dev on Google Groups <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pypa-dev>

      • Brazil list(s) like https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/python-brasil

      • language-specific lists like https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-de and https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-es

      • wheel-builders https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/wheel-builders -- people who make Python packages and distribute them as "wheels"

      • a large, broad "PSF community" mailing list https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/psf-community

      • the Carpentries "discuss" mailing list https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss which has lots of Python users who work in the sciences

    • IRC channels
      • - #pypa-dev on freenode
      • #debian-python on OFTC
    • blogs
      • pyfound.blogspot.com/

      • https://importpython.com/newsletter/

    • podcasts

      • https://talkpython.fm/

      • https://changelog.com/rfc

    • social media
      • use #Python on Twitter, Mastodon
      • I don't have good suggestions regarding Facebook
    • conferences

      • https://scipy.org/

      • local programming clubs that are not particularly about Python but that end up using it, like Machine Learning groups/meetups

    • GitHub

      • https://github.com/pypa/packaging-problems/

      • particular issues marked "ux" or similar in https://github.com/pypa/pip/

      • look for users in https://github.com/pypa/packaging.python.org/

    • ......
• FOSDEM
  • will everyone/anyone be there?
    • not sure
    • * TODO: Sumana
• Infrastructure: What should be our testing setup be to actually look at issues? (e.g. running locally)

  • covered by developer setup https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/development/getting-started/

  • Confirm reported issues, experience them
  • Looking at current development work