PEAK is dead… kinda, sorta

The Python Enterprise Application Kit no longer exists as an integral project, according to a status report posted by its developer earlier this week, but some individual elements are thriving and will continue to receive attention.

PEAK is an application kit intended primarily for developers who create enterprise applications using Python. Its creator, Phillip J. Eby, said in his blog, “Progress on the core has been glacially slow in the last few years, because I no longer work in an ‘enterprise’ shop. But nestled within the big PEAK framework are a lot of little frameworks struggling to get out.”

The Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI), was “originally based on a peak.web innovation” according to Eby, is “positively flourishing.” setuptools “originally created to support installing PEAK” he says is widely downloaded after each new release appears. RuleDispatch has found a home in TurboGears.

“Many of our spun-off utility packages like Importing, DecoratorTools, and SymbolType have also seen some downloads, although wsgiref downloads outnumber the best of these by a factor of around 10-to-1,” Eby said. “The PEAK Core and APIs are seeing little activity, however.” The developer says these would receive little attention in the future since none of his current projects make use of them. “I no longer have significant projects or clients that depend on them, and I saw years ago that there were many smaller and more elegant frameworks hiding inside the core, yearning to break free.”

The bottom line? Jeremy Jones summed it up on his ONLamp blog, “Even in its ‘dead’ state, PEAK still has plenty of promising and usable pieces.”

Shirl Kennedy is the senior editor of theDocuTickerandResourceShelfWeblogs as well as the “Internet Waves” columnist forInformation Today. She has been writing about technology since 1992.