[Zope-dev] zope.publisher dependencies

[Stephan Richter]

On Tuesday 24 February 2009, Shane Hathaway wrote:
> I've noticed that nearly all packages that depend on zope.publisher
> depend only on a few pieces of it:
>
>    - zope.publisher.interfaces

Can you give examples?

>    - zope.publisher.browser.Browser{View|Page}
>
>    - zope.publisher.browser.TestRequest

Packages that depend on those classes usually more or less implicitly depend 
on zope.publisher. So the split might be arbitrary for this example.

> One simple, low-risk refactoring I would like to do is move
> zope.publisher.interfaces into its own package, make zope.publisher a
> namespace package, and make zope.publisher depend on
> zope.publisher.interfaces.  The __init__.py in zope.publisher is already
> empty, so I expect the namespace conversion to be safe.  Then I'd like
> to refine the dependency list of various packages that only require
> zope.publisher.interfaces.  Any objections?

I want to see some motivation, because I fail to see how this helps. 

> It is less clear what we should do with BrowserView and BrowserPage.
> They depend on zope.location, unlike the rest of zope.publisher, so they
> don't really fit there.  Perhaps those two belong in a new package,
> "zope.publisher.browserbase". 

I do agree moving BrowserView and BrowserPage out of the publisher because 
they introduce the zope.location dependency.

> There is also the tiny new "zope.browser" 
> package.  Would it make sense to move them there?  (It's hard to tell
> what the intent of the new package is.)  I'd love to hear other
> suggestions.

I think the purpose of the package is still defining itself. I think it will 
be defined by the things that we move into it. I am very tempted to say that 
it is a good home for BrowserView and BrowserPage.

> As for TestRequest, I could update the setup.py of various packages that
> currently depend on zope.publisher just for TestRequest.  I would make
> zope.publisher a test-only requirement.

TestRequest does not add any additional dependencies to the system, so what's 
the point? It will depend on zope.publisher.browser anyways.

Regards,
Stephan
-- 
Stephan Richter
Web Software Design, Development and Training
Google me. "Zope Stephan Richter"