Update obsolete links to Spyder main website, docs, google group/mailing list and download

[CAM-Gerlach]

Although this project packages rather old (6+ mo - 3+ year) versions of Spyder that are long unsupported, we want to make sure your users and yourselves have up to date links to the Spyder project itself, its documentation, mailing list and downloads, rather than resources older and often more out of date than even the oldest Spyder builds bundled here. To be clear, I don't mean to imply anything negative about your project, and we're glad to see you're using Spyder in a novel manner downstream. Rather, some of this is a result of recent changes and shifts in our online platforms, and most of the remainder is a result of the links and information in the Spyder builds you package being themselves out of date on our end originally, even when we released them.

Therefore, as part of the much larger effort in spyder-ide/spyder-docs#39 , this PR updates your links and those in your downstream builds of Spyder to point to:

• Our main website, which replaced our Github dev page and our obsolete and soon to be removed HTTP PyHosted docs as the main project hub and entry point for general users (including general information, our up to date docs, our blog/news, and direct links to all our other project resources)
• Our new docs site, which replaces links to our docs specifically, replacing the aforementioned HTTP PyHosted docs which will finally be gone soon
• The updated URL to the modern and HTTPS version of our Google Group, replacing the old and HTTP one (which currently redirects)
• The download section of our main site, which replaces the broken link to our individual releases page, and the link to the current and HTTPS Anaconda download page, which replaces the old HTTP link to the Contuum download page (which currently redirects)

Furthermore, it also fixes/updates:

• Our author(s) and mailing list contact email; to The Spyder Project Contributors to properly recognize the >100 contributors to Spyder and provide our mailing list/discussion group email to those interested, from just Pierre and no email at all
• Our modern full name and short description with proper capitalization, which as of ~6+ months ago is officially "The Scientific Python Development Environment", not "Scientific PYthon Development EnviroNment", not to mention is certainly not "Scientific Python Development EnvironmEnt" (i.e. "Pydee", what we were called for a brief period 9+ years ago at the very beginning of our existence, and we are certainly no longer anything close to "an alternative to IDLE", as we are quite far from a toy
• The long description to something representative of the Spyder versions included, from something riddled with errors, inaccuracies and out of date even for old versions

Hopefully this is helpful and acceptable to you, and thanks again for using Spyder! Best of luck with your project, and let us know if you have any questions for our end.

[CAM-Gerlach]

Also, I noticed you have this Writing Plugins for Spyder page on your site that has a long out of date link (to the Spyder Bitbucket, that has been obsolete for about 5 years now since we moved to Github, but still ranks quite highly in some Snyder-related Google searches. I understand the page itself is quite out of date, but would consider at least updating the link to point to our Github (and perhaps as a courtesy, inline-linking the Spyder name itself to our main site as demonstrated if you'd like), so as to not direct people to the wrong place? Thanks!

Finally, feel free to submit any of your added features, enhancements, and fixes upstream to our main repo, and we'd be glad to consider them for inclusion into mainline Spyder so you can get them out to our x00,00s of active users and help harmonize it with your distribution, potentially leading to less maintenance burden for you in the future and more of your domain-specific functionality for everyone. I have no specific idea if its practicable without reviewing them, but just wanted to extend the offer.

Thanks!

[0u812]

Hi @CAM-Gerlach, thanks for these updates! I think everything looks okay. The only question I have is about anaconda.com vs anaconda.org - when I search for Anaconda in Google I get the latter but in your changes you supplied the former. I was wondering what the difference is between the two?

I think the main reason for holding back the version was that we had trouble figuring out how to make our Spyder plugins available via Anaconda 'out-of-the-box'. @kirichoi might know more about the specifics. In our research, having the plugins working is pretty essential, especially for importing certain file types, so we were just trying to make do with what was workable for us.

I'm okay with merging this. @kirichoi, any thoughts?

[CAM-Gerlach]

The only question I have is about anaconda.com vs anaconda.org - when I search for Anaconda in Google I get the latter but in your changes you supplied the former. I was wondering what the difference is between the two?

It's actually rather confusing (including myself, until recently) unless one is intimately familiar with what both are and a specific setting in Google webmaster tools. Anaconda.com is the Anaconda distribution website and the Anaconda site, where one can download Anaconda itself, etc. Anaconda.org hosts conda (and maybe Miniconda; can't remember), the information on the defaults-channel packages, and conda-forge. I believe they have set something up in Google webmaster tools that makes them be treated as the same website for PageRank purposes and Anaconda.org always get priority over Anaconda.com, which boosts their total rank but make it essentially impossible to find anything on Anaconda.com without specifically typing "Anaconda.com" as a search term, and thus folks who are unaware will never find Anaconda.

think the main reason for holding back the version was that we had trouble figuring out how to make our Spyder plugins available via Anaconda 'out-of-the-box'.

Have you considered just hosting them on PyPI, and conda-forge/your own channel, as we do for all our plugins? Its not too hard to set either of those up, very likely much less so than your current maintenance burden plus not getting the benefit of nearly a year of Spyder releases with many more on the way. However, I'm not intimately familiar with your specific needs so I can't say for sure.

Thanks!

[CAM-Gerlach]

@0u812 Also, any idea about updating the links on the site? I also found this page, although its PageRank isn't as high.

[kirichoi]

Thanks for the contribution. The main reason for holding back was because of our publications; we needed to make sure that everything works while the publications are accepted. Our next version, which are scheduled to release soon, will feature the latest version of Spyder. Our plugins are in fact ready to be deployed through PyPI, I believe.
We will be updating the links on the website. There are a lot of obsolete material there so it might take some time.

[CAM-Gerlach]

Thanks @kirichoi and @0u812 ! Best of luck with everything!

[hsauro]

I'd like to add that I greatly appreciate the spyder IDE, for novice users in particular it a great tool for them to quickly get started. Herbert Sauro

On Fri, Aug 3, 2018 at 11:30 AM C.A.M. Gerlach ***@***.***> wrote: Thanks @kirichoi <https://github.com/kirichoi> and @0u812 <https://github.com/0u812> ! Best of luck with everything! — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#386 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABAZDr0fZgkhBW0z6fJMTpe79WInMNC8ks5uNJX9gaJpZM4VtyeA> .

-- Herbert Sauro, Associate Professor University of Washington, Bioengineering 206-685-2119, www.sys-bio.org [email protected] Books: http://books.analogmachine.org/

[CAM-Gerlach]

Thanks for the kind words, @hsauro ! We've really tried to make it more accessible to newer users in recent versions over the past 6-9 months, with numerous usability improvements, better UI text, fewer bugs, and overhauled documentation in the latest 3.x releases, as well as working on the bigger new features and core enhancements in Spyder 4 that should appeal to a wide variety of users (with better and much more reliable autocomplete/introspection/help, GUI package and environment management, built-in new project templates, a welcome screen, keyboard shortcut presets to emulate other applications, and further expansion of our documentation being a few of the most relevant to beginners).