For end-users, could JuliaHub provide links to similar packages whenever someone is reading a specific package page? Or maybe a feature where members could suggest links manually for review? For example: If, as an end-user, I find InMemoryDatasets.jl in JuliaHub, I would like to be alerted that Da…

I think you could just teach students what are the github stars/forks, how to look at contributors’ page and commit history…

That is what I did. I don’t think it is enough though.

When you search JuliaHub for packages, the site already displays Github stars, version number, and the number of new users along with a graph (not sure how “new” is defined). So if you search for “CSV”, it’s pretty clear than JuliaData/CSV.jl is probably a choice to start with than tk3369/CSVReader.…

Yes, we need some way to make the redundancy explicit. Beginners tend to think that CSVReader.jl is a better choice just because of the name. Those coming from MATLAB tend to think that DLMReader.jl is a better choice just because of the name. These users should be aware that CSV.jl is the one most …

[image] juliohm: So links connecting all these packages would help […] One can easily cook an algorithm to cluster these packages based on their README The low-tech solution is just to start making PRs. I wish it was standard for every package’s Readme to have a section linking to other simil…

[image] juliohm: So links connecting all these packages would help, it is a community detection problem. We could bring telemetry back into discussion. [image] Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in Internals & Design New “ Pkg & Storage protocols ” and an accompanying cen…

[quote="juliohm, post:1, topic:82133] A student asked me yesterday “professor, how do I know if a Julia package is good?”. She had installed a package that was not well-maintained, was having issues with basic examples and didn’t know if that package was the go-to package to solve the problem (gues…

[image] alejandromerchan: So, while I agree that the proliferation of packages can be a problem, we can also solve it through education. I agree with everything you said, except for the statement above. I don’t think that we can improve the current duplication of efforts with education: the a…

IMHO that problem of “suggesting” packages and explain possible differences can be easily solved by good blog posts, written by developers or experienced users. As a community (in formal terms) I don’t think it would be good to have “official” tools for searching selected packages, that is against …

It is a good skill to learn. Don’t spoil your students. Let them grow by pushing them into bushes.

How to know if a package is good?

Community

oheil June 1, 2022, 4:53pm 7

We could bring telemetry back into discussion.

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How to know if a package is good?

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