Ensuring that quality dub packages don't get permanently abandoned
LorenDB
computersemiexpert at outlook.com
Tue Sep 12 01:07:01 UTC 2023
I've recently noticed that a lot of the packages available on Dub
are rather old: 80% of the 1475 packages available haven't been
updated for at least a year, and around 50% are five years old or
even older. This is a shame, as there are some really neat
libraries on Dub that I'd love to use, but I'm just a little bit
afraid to start using a package that likely won't have any active
upstream support; even if I were to fix any bugs I found myself,
there's no good way to get the fix out to others if the original
author/maintainer isn't around to merge your fixes into the
upstream repo.
I recently learned about the [Code
Shelter](https://www.codeshelter.co) project. It looks like a
really neat resource, and the fellow who started the project says
that although the Code Shelter seems inactive, it's more due to a
lack of proper marketing than to people bailing on it. I think
that the D community could potentially make use of the Code
Shelter by adopting it for various packages and promoting its
use. For example, when somebody is adding a new package to
code.dlang.org, they could be shown a prompt encouraging them to
add their project to the Code Shelter if they are comfortable
with that; if a package owner is inactive for a certain amount of
time, they could be sent an email encouraging them to look into
the Code Shelter.
I will add the disclaimer that this is just an off-the-cuff idea
that I want to put out there; however, I think that having a
package maintenance solution like the Code Shelter in place for
the Dub package registry would be a big boon to the D ecosystem.
I'm interested in hearing feedback on this idea :)
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