From 9a5d42226aa753083a065ac355bead973a7cb424 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Sarah Zakarias Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2024 10:02:08 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Add documentation on download counts --- doc/help-scoring.md | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) diff --git a/doc/help-scoring.md b/doc/help-scoring.md index 2ca9566e27..98a0173a66 100644 --- a/doc/help-scoring.md +++ b/doc/help-scoring.md @@ -30,6 +30,14 @@ option. Pub.dev tracks and stores how many times each version of each package gets downloaded. This is used to display package usage metrics. +The displayed download counts on pub.dev are aggregates based on raw server-side numbers counting the times a package archive has been downloaded. + +This means that some numbers might be lower or higher than expected. The package can have a high usage that appears low because users may cache the package in their `PUB_CACHE`, which is a global cache. Hence, a particular package version will only be downloaded once per user, even if the user calls `pub get` many times across different projects. + +On the other hand, for some packages the download count can be relatively high. For instance, the number can be high if the package is used as a dependency by other popular packages. The download counts can also be highly affected if the package is used by CI systems running tests, since these systems typically don't retain the `PUB_CACHE` between test runs. + +The download count is by no means a perfect metric, and should be regarded as an indicator of popularity. + ## Popularity Popularity measures the number of apps that depend on a package over the past 60 From fbbdd222c493d69952357c7b1395a6aa8c3659cc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Sarah Zakarias Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2024 10:24:42 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 2/2] comment --- doc/help-scoring.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/help-scoring.md b/doc/help-scoring.md index 98a0173a66..0c4f8d56f9 100644 --- a/doc/help-scoring.md +++ b/doc/help-scoring.md @@ -32,11 +32,11 @@ Pub.dev tracks and stores how many times each version of each package gets downl The displayed download counts on pub.dev are aggregates based on raw server-side numbers counting the times a package archive has been downloaded. -This means that some numbers might be lower or higher than expected. The package can have a high usage that appears low because users may cache the package in their `PUB_CACHE`, which is a global cache. Hence, a particular package version will only be downloaded once per user, even if the user calls `pub get` many times across different projects. +The download count is not a measure of how many users a package has. A package can have a high usage with low download counts because users may cache the package in their `PUB_CACHE`, which is a global cache. Hence, a particular package version will only be downloaded once per user, even if the user calls `pub get` many times across different projects. -On the other hand, for some packages the download count can be relatively high. For instance, the number can be high if the package is used as a dependency by other popular packages. The download counts can also be highly affected if the package is used by CI systems running tests, since these systems typically don't retain the `PUB_CACHE` between test runs. +On the other hand, for some packages the download count may be relatively high. For instance, the number can be high if the package is used as a dependency by other popular packages. The download counts can also be highly affected if the package is used by CI systems running tests, since these systems typically don't retain the `PUB_CACHE` between test runs. -The download count is by no means a perfect metric, and should be regarded as an indicator of popularity. +The download count is by no means a perfect metric, and should only be regarded as an indicator of popularity. ## Popularity