Proposal: rename tool.pdm.scripts to tool.pdm.tasks

[GabDug]

Hey 👋
I've recently been working on a VS Code extension for PDM and I noticed something: I'm not a fan of the naming of tool.pdm.scripts.

Thus I open a conversation about renaming it to tool.pdm.tasks, feel free to tell me what you think, whether your agree or disagree!

Proposal: Rename tool.pdm.scripts to tool.pdm.tasks

Summary

PDM supports setting "scripts" in pyproject.toml file, which are available to run development tasks.
However, the name "scripts" can cause confusion with the project.script, used for packaging.

Furthermore, PDM "scripts" can be commands, shell scripts, python functions or a combination of them, which is more like a task than a script.

I propose to rename tool.pdm.scripts to tool.pdm.tasks, which is more consistent with the concept of task in other tools, such as VSCode tasks, or Poe the poet tasks.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• "Task" has better semantics than "script", considering the possibilities of the "scripts" in PDM.
• "Task" is more consistent with the concept of task in other tools, such as VSCode tasks, or Poe the poet tasks.
• "Task" would avoid confusion with "project.scripts", which is a different concept: tasks are for development, scripts are for packaging.

Cons

• "Task" is a more generic term, and it could be confused with other concepts, such as "task" in asyncio, or "task" in Celery.
• Users coming from npm could be confused, because npm scripts are called "scripts".
• Burden of migration for users and maintainers.

Ecosystem impact

Tools reading directly from pyproject.toml tool.pdm.scripts that are not updated may stop working.

Apart from this VS Code extension, I'm not aware of tools using it directly.

Retrocompatibility

This change could be made in a retrocompatible way, to make it easier on user.

PDM could support both naming for a little while, so users can migrate their projects and users with different versions of PDM on the same project won't have issues.

I can take the responsibility to update PDM and its documentation to support the change.

Deprecation plan

• Support both "scripts" and "tasks" in pyproject.toml file for N versions.
  • If both "scripts" and "tasks" are defined, the "scripts" will be ignored and a warning will be shown.
  • Deprecation warning for projects still using "tool.pdm.scripts" in pyproject.toml file.
  • The warning will show on startup? On some commands invocation?
• Automatic remediation after N versions.
  • If "tool.pdm.scripts" is found in pyproject.toml file, it will be renamed to "tool.pdm.tasks" and a warning will be shown.
  • If "tool.pdm.scripts" is found in pyproject.toml file, and "tool.pdm.tasks" is also found, a warning (error?) will be shown.

[jvllmr]

In the JavaScript ecosystem they are also called scripts, aren't they? At least pnpm and yarn (I don't know for npm) also have a hook mechanic for built-in tasks implemented. I agree that the name tasks fits better, but when looking at only the package manager ecosystem, scripts appears to be the standard established by package.json.

[jvllmr]

Only just read that you also mentioned that in cons, oops 😅. But my point still stands.

[GabDug]

Yep, the npm ecosystem uses scripts, but they are limited to commands (no composite), and to my knowledge there's no equivalent to project.scripts, so no name confusion for them.

To summarize my point:

• I believe composition of "scripts" really makes it "tasks", akin to Makefile tasks
• The naming collision with project.scripts make things confusing and harder to explain

[baggiponte]

I don't have an opinion on this, but an anectode. I never knew project.scripts was a thing, though I knew about tool.pdm.scripts, so I tried to use project.scripts as it was a way to specify "task aliases".