[PyGreSQL] Improvements and directions for the future

[Christoph Zwerschke]

At http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2010-02/msg00351.php 
folks are complaining about the confusing mess of PostgreSQL drivers for 
Python and that there is not one terrific driver to rule them all.

In fact, there are a couple of drivers that have evolved over the years, 
each with pros and cons, and none of them really shiny and perfect. But 
joining forces will be difficult, since some have completely different 
approaches, e.g. some are based on libpq, some use pure Python etc. 
There are also different ideas how to extend DB API 2 and implement 
PostgreSQL data types in Python.

But what we can do is try to revamp and modernize PyGreSQL, including 
homepage and docs, and think about future directions.

First, what is our main "product" to focus at? The classic API or the DB 
API2? We should really make that clear on the homepage. For instance, we 
have extensive docs for the classic API, but our pgdb docs still say 
they "need to be written" (http://www.pygresql.org/pgdb.html) so it 
looks like the classic API is our main product and it seems some people 
got confused by that. If the classic one is our focus, we should try to 
improve it, otherwise we should make clear that it's deprecated and only 
maintained for historical reasons and to provide backward compatiblity, 
i.e. only for old applications based on that API.

We will also need a roadmap for migrating PyGreSQL to Python 3.x. I'd 
like to create an experimental branch for that. And in this context, I 
still advocate moving to a SVN or HG repository to simplify branching 
and merging. A bug tracker will also help in reflating development. The 
simplest solution would be to move to SF, Google Code or the like.

Another issue concerning future-safety on the Windows platform is how to 
deal with 64bit Python on Windows which gets increasingly popular. The 
problem is that PostgreSQL - including the libpq.dll - is (so far) only 
available for 32bit and they are only slowly moving towards 64bit 
because it does not bring much advantage for PostgreSQL itself. So to 
use PyGreSQL on 64bit Python on Windows, we may need a 64bit wrapper dll 
communicating with the 32bit pibpq.dll via DCOM or something. Any better 
ideas?

-- Christoph