Contributors ! Helpers wanted

[braian87b]

Hi:

I recently saw an increase on issues posting and feel of usage of this library, I had no time to help a lot making pull request, code checking/ unit tests, etc (too see if it works properly) and even find improvements of some other users on forks to see if are ready or not to be merged here, I had no tools neither on my work computers to do it, I just use the library with SQLAlchemy and SQL Server 2000/2005/2008 for some projects of different sizes (I even have one fully working on a Raspberry Pi with FreeTDS) and when I had some small problems I try to find the cause and fix it by myself on the way, (I try to do the same for other users when I catch some when I get notifications from github on my email inbox)... like #70 or #78 and have added some sample usage code snippets into the Readme.md file too.

So, If someone that have that time, and knowledge needed I could add it as a Contributor to this Main Repository like I was added for the same reason some time ago kindly by jiangwen365.

Thanks in advance for the understanding!

[MRigal]

Hi @braian87b
I already contacted @jiangwen365 also by mail to propose that.
I won't be the perfect maintainer, but at least I will try to do some basic cleanup and releases. Do you also have access to pypi? Else I fear it is useless to be Maintainer...

[braian87b]

@MRigal Hi, no, I don't have access to pypi repository but that will not be a problem, we could even mix all code on a different repository or fork and then backport and merge again here to see if @jiangwen365 or some pipy mantainer can upgrade it to the pypi, or someone on pypi can give us access to the pypyodbc package on pypi to be able to upgrade it, or make a new package with a different name and point pypyodbc one as a suggested upgrade or something...
Then main problem is that many people use this piece of software, and it works very well in some scenarios but is has some tweaks and bug resolve missing yet and it needs patchs and forks verifications to be merged here too, and all of that requires time, and unfortunately I don't have it. :(

[MRigal]

Hi @braian87b
I think the delayed release process to pypi is one of the major problem, but I'm fine to tackle some of the more radical solutions you propose.
I'm fine with checking the PRs and help generally, but I haven't the time to go through the Issues list and propose fixes for many of them, especially since several are due to very specific configurations which I can't test myself neither...

The first big step would be to refactor the code from one file to be a real package and to design some test suite to assess the various components. But that's a quite massive task I'm also not sure to have enough time to tackle it properly

[braian87b]

There is no need to do all the job by yourself.

I think if we add a new file that does the "tests" with an easy to modify connection string somewhere.
in that way users will have the oportunity to add their failing test with comments as a patch to that file with new def functions, the task of make a patch to pypyodbc.py and test.py will be easier to do.

on the other side, If we talk with someone at pypi it should be no problem the package upgrade process.

also, there is many forks with handy modifications to try and explore, we could ask to each user individually to make the proper push request too. https://github.com/jiangwen365/pypyodbc/network

I will take a look at the make a test.py using nose.py or something like that.
I have no experience at all with pypi package submitting process but let me know if you need something from my end to speed up that in some manner.

There is no hurry, if someone has a hurry will come here to help us.

Thanks!

[plannigan]

Any updates on this front? I might be able to contribute some time. I've already created a PR for one small feature.

[plannigan]

@braian87b At this point, I think you satisfy the requirements for Continued maintenance of an abandoned project to gain access to the PyPi package account. That would allow a new release to be made with the changes you have merged.

[braian87b]

Would be happy to add any user interested in continue the maintanment of the proyect to this repo.