For reasons outlined in CPANProblem , I don't installPython packages using their setup tools; I build them into RPMs andinstall the RPMs. Python's distutils (the setup system used by mostPython packages) have a command to do this, called bdist_rpm , butit has some issues that have caused me to become quite familiar withits inner workings.

bdist_rpm works in the following steps:

1. use the distutils sdist command to create a source tarball.
2. write an RPM specfile.
3. create a local

I recently realized something: databases are APIs .

Just like library functions and classes with defined methods, thecolumns and tables and inter-table relationships in your databases areeffectively a collective API to the database. (As distinct fromthe APIs used to talk to the database program, ranging through ODBC toSQL.)

If you have what Martin Fowler calls an application database ,used only inside one application, you have an internal API, just likea module's interface or a class's methods. But if

(The following example is a simplified and modified version of anonline discussion I had recently. All errors are my fault.)

Here's an example large database problem; it's simplest to cast thisas a customer support system that you sell to big companies.

In your first version, the customer support application databasesystem includes a table of companies that are being supported.

Multiple groups write various programs against this database, and inpart against this table and other tables hooked to it (such as peoplewho