[ckan-dev] Future, flask, breaking things, funding.

Mon Sep 14 07:24:58 UTC 2015

Hi,

I’ve recently been playing about with implementing parts of CKAN in Flask side-by-side with the current Pylons implementation. I’m doing it like this so that it isn’t immediately obvious that there’s a migration happening towards using Flask (aka nothing breaks).  I don’t think this branch should ever be merged, it’s more exploratory but it has raised some questions that I think it would be good to discuss.

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It’s pretty clear that the vast majority of people asked would like to move to Flask as a replacement for some layers of the system (leaving things like logic and plugins alone). 
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We’ve discussed at the tech-team meetings, but I think a longer, more accessible conversation would be beneficial.

1. What version of CKAN should be targeted? Common sense suggests 3.0, but that being the case, exactly how far can we go in breaking some backward compatibility?  This isn’t really a technical question - would be good to hear what the community would accept …

2. Does it *really* need to be side-by-side?  Running Flask and Pylons side-by-side means staying on Python 2 for another few years (because Pylons).  A reasonably deep incision and removal of non-logic/non-plugin code would make a move to Py3 easier, but with some level of breakage in external plugins. Staying on 2 would mean a move to 3 at a later date and more pain.

3. Would the CKAN Association like to fund someone to do some of this work? This is just one of several ideas mentioned on https://github.com/ckan/ideas-and-roadmap/issues/152 that really needs to be done if CKAN is going to thrive instead of just survive.

Any feedback welcome…

Cheers

Ross.