Links from django docs to djangopackages.com should be 'officially endorsed' or not?

[guettli]

This ticket was closed as invalid: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/26159

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Here comes a pull request to add a link to the djangopackages comparison grid "Pagination".

Background: The pagination in django core is only very basic. Most people want more. I think re-use helps more then re-inventing :-)
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sergei-maertens

    Resolution set to invalid
    Status changed from new to closed

I don't think the docs are the appropriate place to point out alternatives. I feel if Django starts going down that road, then you should do the same not only for pagination, but for forms, views, other db adapters, other template engines... I think it's a slippery slope.

While I think that djangopackages.com is a great resource, I'm not sure if it (and no other resources) should be 'officially endorsed' by Django in the docs.
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I think a lot of time gets wasted by re-inventing stuff. Yes, programmers love to program. But time have
changed. There are a lot of great re-usable apps and libraries and programmers who wants to
get things done use them.

What do you think for *this* issue: the docs for pagination should point to the comparison grid or not?

Regards,
  Thomas Güttler

[Federico Capoano]

It seems like a good proposal, It would be good to know why Sergei doesn't think it is appropiate for Django to add links to third party package comparison grids.

django-rest-framework links to third party extensions in its documentation and this had a positive effect on the whole DRF ecosystem.

Federico

[Markus Holtermann]

I think that links to 3rd party pages with grids, comparisons, pros'n'cons, scattered all over Django's documentation aren't too helpful. I'd probably prefer a separate page in the docs that links to those 3rd party pages. The general problem with those sites though, they are not audited for their accuracy or correctness, less for being up to date.

/Markus

[Aymeric Augustin]

On 1 févr. 2016, at 12:20, Markus Holtermann <in...@markusholtermann.eu> wrote:

> I think that links to 3rd party pages with grids, comparisons, pros'n'cons, scattered all over Django's documentation aren't too helpful.

I agree. I’m +0 on linking to Django packages on a page that talks about the ecosystem of pluggable applications, -0 on linking to just a specific grid.

--
Aymeric.

[Sergei Maertens]

My main concern is that it might appear that Django officially endorses the website, and that it might not be clear to developers that Django isn't directly involved with all those third party packages - which could be potentially harmful.

I'm also think that if you start linking to a grid for pagination, that you should do so for alternative form libraries, template engines, maybe even ORM-stuff if that exists. Basically for every (small or big) component that Django offers. Markus explained it better by using the term 'scattered all over the documentation'.

I would have no problems with a page/section in the docs where libraries or resources like djangopackages.com are linked, centralized in a single place. You lose the relevance on the subject at hand though.

DRF links to extensions, where I assume that Tom has checked all of them and deemed them worthy. It links to a known set of packages, and to me it seems that Tom officially endorses them and finds the quality sufficicient. That's something you don't get with a link to a grid comparison where the content can change multiple time per day.

[guettli]

thank you all for your feedback.

I think it would be good to reference from the individual page to the matching comparison grid (if one exists). It tells
newcomers: Professionals do re-use, they don't re-invent.

For example the python docs sometimes have a box called "See also" which contains links to related pages.

I found such a box at the bottom of "hashlib": https://docs.python.org/2/library/hashlib.html#key-derivation

Regards,
  Thomas Güttler