[aur-dev] [PATCH] Add newly submitted packages functionality with json interface

[Aaron Griffin]

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Randy Morris <randy.morris at archlinux.us> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 08, 2009 at 03:16:26PM -0700, elij wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 3:15 PM, elij <elij.mx at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 3:54 AM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> On Tue 06 Oct 2009 14:03 -0500, Aaron Griffin wrote:
>> >>> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Laszlo Papp <djszapi at archlinux.us> wrote:
>> >>> > On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 1:40 AM, elij <elij.mx at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> >
>> >>> >> I guess I don't see the need for this.
>> >>> >> If you want to see 'new packages', just use the rss feed.
>> >>> >> Dumping this in the rcp api seems... wrong to me.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Thank you the feedback! My opinion in this matter is that if I'd like to
>> >>> > create a frontend program for AUR, especially console based e.g., or to
>> >>> > create another API/backend for AUR, then the json interface/output would be
>> >>> > more portable than parsing html/xml pages to get an option for a command
>> >>> > line frontend to get the newly submitted/updated packages.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Rss feed and this option are different purposes in fact.
>> >>> > With this option from command line you could get anytime the newly
>> >>> > updated/submitted packages, but with rss you see them continously.
>> >>> > The first facility is really console based, but the second is
>> >>> > webpage based, I think it's different or maybe I'm wrong.
>> >>>
>> >>> You could do the exact same thing with an RSS feed... I don't
>> >>> understand how this data being in RSS makes it so that you cannot
>> >>> fetch the results whenever you want. RSS isn't made of magic.
>> >>
>> >> I wasn't sure if this was a good idea, but then I wondered why we're
>> >> fragmenting the data into different interfaces (RSS, JSON, web) rather
>> >> than unifying everything under one interface.
>> >>
>> >> So after my initial apprehension this enhancement makes sense to me, but
>> >> I'd like to see it do caching like the RSS does.
>> >
>> > If you are bound and determined to do it, then memcache would be
>> > sufficient for caching it (so it can kind of cache like the RSS does).
>> > Not sure if memcached is running on the aur server yet, but I am sure
>> > someone could slap it on there without difficulty if it isn't.
>> >
>>
>> fyi. I still think it is a bad idea.
>> Just trying to point out where the duct tape is laying. :P
>
> FWIW, I agree with cactus here.  Moving the recent updates off of RSS
> would make the behavior of the AUR different from the main Arch site in
> this regard.  The RPC interface just doesn't seem to be the right place
> for this.

Flickr actually has two APIs - a feed based one and a REST based
"ajax" API. Both accept a format=foo parameter and json is allowed for
both sets.

* Is the AUR's rss feed generated per request? Or is it a static output file?
* If it's generated, why not simply use the same "format=" thing here.

Note that Flickr finds it totally acceptable and ideal to use feeds in
addition to their API