PackagingWG/2020-10-07-pip-teamwidemeeting

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Wed Oct 7

Participants

  • Georgia

  • Ernest

  • Pradyun

  • Bernard

  • Sumana

Agenda

  • Status & blockers

    • Pradyun: Yesterday, worked though surveys + project board. Wants help deciding order to do things in. Prioritization.

    • Georgia: No particular blockers. TODO: give Ernest a tweet. And: ResolutionImpossible{.backtick} error, backtracking message, clarifying what’s needed.

    • Bernard: no real blockers. We have been getting more signups for UX Studies panel, and 20+ signups for “who uses pip?”

    • Ernest: there will be progress on minuting on python.org - https://github.com/python/pythondotorg/issues/1656 - want to be an alpha user?

      • Sumana says: yes! First iteration is specific to PSF board’s needs, then, anything PSF is overseeing.

      • And: PSF liked our YouTube video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4GQCBBsuNU

      • Sumana says: get Sept invoices in ASAP

    • Sumana: reschedule Tuesday meeting & approve invoices, wrangled issues with Pradyun to sort out 20.3 and 20.2.4, and working on meeting minutes

  • Pip backtracking & taking too long: info message https://editor.nuboso.ei8fdb.org/0S2BEZAUTZCJCv089n94Jw?both#

    • Pradyun: there are 3 broad things that need to happen

      • 1: what exact threshhold numbers we should use when presenting “we’re taking too long” – “8 backtrack choices” for instance – threshold how many decisions we say “that was a bad choice” about

        • Georgia: how long (clock time) do n packages/backtracks take? Each one could take unknown amount of time.

        • Pradyun: we could use clock time OR # of backtracks as threshold.

        • Bernard: per notes from yesterday: tentatively decided “after 8 backtracks” for 1st message because 5-6 might be reasonable

        • Georgia: time expectations depend on the type of feedback you are seeing. Seeing SOMETHING changing/loading is an indication of progress.

      • 2: exact wording of message

      • 3. LATER: what nice things we can do once we have better output

    • Bernard: ideally we’d test this with users. we don’t have time, so, going by discussion with maintainers, past data & experience. In messaging, give people a way to give feedback such as “this message is confusing” or “that was way too fast”

    • https://files.nuboso.ei8fdb.org/backtrack-messaging.mov – 43 seconds. Thanks Pradyun for sharing a “prototype command line output” tool! Messages in https://editor.nuboso.ei8fdb.org/0S2BEZAUTZCJCv089n94Jw?both#Messages

      • Message 1 - displayed after X backtracks

        • INFO: pip needs to download different package versions to find a compatible set to install. This could take a long time.

        • DECISION: we’ll stick to 8 for this message.

      • Message 2 - displayed after Y backtracks

        • INFO: This is a complicated process. It may not be successful - to abort press keys: ctrl + c

        • DECISION: we’ll stick to 13 for this messages.

      • To improve how pip performs, tell us why this happened here: https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/XXXX

    • Timeline:

      • Bernard: don’t foresee any potential slowdowns/issues we’d have around this.

  • 20.2.4 and 20.3 planning - https://github.com/pypa/pip/milestone/38 milestone for 20.3

    • we’re going to put out 2 releases this month.

      • 20.3 – second half of Oct.

        • This “shiny new resolver” release.

      • 20.2.4 – now-ish.

        • documentation and performance improvements that we’d get out to users who’re trying out the beta release.

        • needs commits/PRs to be cherry-picked onto 20.2.3

    • Pradyun: this is accurate. We need to decide which exact performance & docs improvements to add in. Add to https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/8511 . Exact commits/PRs we need to add in.

    • Outstanding questions

      • Georgia to follow up on the existing issues that haven’t been updated yet.

        • Concerned about some overlap/tangling between current discussions around backtracking output and some other UX issues discussed earlier.

      • should we have a 20.3 beta/prerelease?

  • UX next 3 months (notes from Georgia, as I imagine we may not get to this in the meeting today)

    • We are wrapping up survey & interview data collection in the next few weeks, and are analyzing those results to share in a useful way for the team and the community

    • From there we expect to have some recommendations overall, as well as clear resource needs for the project that will be basis for the trainings

    • We can share a larger overall update next week if that’s helpful

      • Yes! That sounds good!

  • Prioritizing Pradyun’s work