Re: PLEASE don't remove eggs [was Re: faulty releases and pypi access [update]]

On Sep 26, 2007, at 3:33 PM, Dieter Maurer wrote:

> Gary Poster wrote at 2007-9-26 09:39 -0400:
>> ...
>>> - Remove the broken files.
>>
>> I'm not sure if this is related, but I noticed yesterday at least of
>> couple of eggs that we are using had been removed, in this case from
>> zope.org.  Please, whoever is doing this, stop.  If a release is
>> brown-bagged as far as you are concerned for some reason, please do
>> not assume it is ok to delete for others.
>
> I do not agree.
>
> When I have understood Christian correctly, then these distributions
> were not working at all (they lacked ZCML files).
>
> Distributions not working at all should be deleted as soon
> as one recognizes they are not working at all -- to limit
> the damage they may cause.
>
> Of course, not having a tag in the SVN repository is
> not a sufficient reason to remove otherwise fully working
> distributions again.

If you released some software that does an os.system('rm -rf .') or  
something, then, OK, maybe you can convince me.  So, yes, I have a  
line past which maybe deletion is ok with me.

But I disagree with yours--code is still importable without ZCML  
files and I may only be using a given package in that way and relying  
on it in my buildouts, not having noticed the lack of zcml because it  
is irrelevant to me.

In the vast majority of cases--for instance, in the case of someone  
who apparently removed a zope.app.wsgi egg recently--it simply  
shouldn't be done.

So, yes, you are right, I stated an extreme position and I could be  
argued away from the edge.  But the extremity of my position is a  
simple, followable rule that I certainly prefer over the case you  
describe.

Gary