Stating the size of ecosystems in descriptions (Was: Re: Gauche description)

[swedebugia]

On 2019-01-16 09:47, Pierre Neidhardt wrote:
> Hi Gabriel!
> 
> Thanks for contributing Gauche to Guix!
> I've noticed something strange however: in the description, you mention
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> There are currently 58 packages available.
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> Isn't it shortsighted?  If another package is added upstream, then the
> description won't match anymore.
> 
> Why mentioning it at all?

It was my idea during review. I think it is a good idea to give the user
a hint about the number of available packages that exist in the
ecosystems/package-managers we package.

This is also valid for our python-pip-package etc. Currently this
description does not mention anything about the number available
(164,921 projects as of today).

I agree that specifying the exact number might not be a good idea for
the reason you stated. What about "More that 50 packages are currently
available"?

For pip this would be "More than 164.000 packages are currently
available."

--

This enables the user to quickly get a feel of how many of the total
packages of python are currently in guix: fold-packages... prefix
python: ~1400 out of 164.000 total ~ less than 1% of the python
ecosystem is currently available in Guix thus you could help import more
packages!

-- 
Cheers 
Swedebugia