ANN: Reverse Dependencies in Hackage (demo)

Hello, I have implemented reverse dependencies in Hackage. You can play with the demo here: http://bifunctor.homelinux.net/~roel/hackage I already send a message to Haskell-Cafe, but I made a few changes and would like some feedback. You can sort the tables of reverse dependencies by clicking on the column headers. Large tables (base or the total overview) might take some time. Sorting is done client-side with a bit of JavaScript. I added a link to an overview of the reverse dependencies of every package in hackage. It is sorted by the total number of rev. deps by default, so the most dependent-on packages (within hackage) are at the top. In the future such a list might be expanded with other information, like the download count. Things I would like feedback on: - Rev. deps overview for all packages; is it useful? - If you look at the reverse dependencies for a package like digest you'll see a list of packages that depend on digest. Next to the names of the packages that depend on digest are their respective reverse dependencies. The idea is that you can see which are the most "important" (for some value of important) packages that depend on digest. Is that useful? - Is this the best way to present the information? Currently I am working on a patch for the new hackage-server. Regards, Roel

Hi,
This is really neat.
2009/10/15 Roel van Dijk
Things I would like feedback on: - Rev. deps overview for all packages; is it useful?
Yes.
- If you look at the reverse dependencies for a package like digest you'll see a list of packages that depend on digest. Next to the names of the packages that depend on digest are their respective reverse dependencies. The idea is that you can see which are the most "important" (for some value of important) packages that depend on digest. Is that useful?
Yes, I think so.
- Is this the best way to present the information?
Are the packages with all zeroes in the columns still reverse dependencies (that don't have any dependencies in turn)? -- Johan

2009/10/15 Johan Tibell
- Is this the best way to present the information?
Are the packages with all zeroes in the columns still reverse dependencies (that don't have any dependencies in turn)?
Yes. They are reverse dependencies which have no reverse dependencies of their own.

You can sort the tables of reverse dependencies by clicking on the column headers.
I wouldn't have thought about clicking in the columns headers. Maybe you could show the order arrow already in the beggining, before any clicks, this would give a hint.
- Rev. deps overview for all packages; is it useful?
Sure! Do you think it could be complemented with a graph view? I liked this, from graphviz page: http://graphviz.org/Gallery/undirected/softmaint.html
- Is this the best way to present the information?
Just cosmetics: in the individual package rev. dependencies, what do you think of using two columns, one for direct dependencies table and other for indirect dependencies? This would remove the need for navigation links in the main table. Also, here, if it's feasible, I think a graph with just the central package and 1fst and 2nd order dependencies could be usefull. Best, Maurício
participants (3)
-
Johan Tibell
-
Maurício CA
-
Roel van Dijk