Should board_folder use caching by default?

[nathanjmcdougall]

From the docs, I got the impression that pins.board_folder with a shared network drive would include caching:

pins-python/docs/get_started.qmd

Line 80 in 8a4faf1

Note that when the data lives elsewhere, pins takes care of downloading and caching so that it's only re-downloaded when needed.

But this doesn't seem to be the case:

pins-python/pins/constructors.py

Line 160 in 8a4faf1

return board("file", path, versioned, cache=None, allow_pickle_read=allow_pickle_read)

I am working around this by using pins.board directly:

board = pins.board("file", "Z:\\my-team\pins")

But I am wondering whether this behaviour (of caching network drive boards) should be default. If not, should it be better documented?

[juliasilge]

What we say in the R package vignette is:

pin_read() and pin_download() automatically cache remote pins: they maintain a local copy of the data (so it's fast) but always check that it's up-to-date (so your analysis doesn't use stale data).

I guess we are leaning on a specific meaning for the adjective "remote" there, and we have had some confusion about the situation with a shared network drive, though, which the code in pins mostly treats as a local filesystem.

See some discussions in:

• Use case for enabling cache inside board_folder  pins-r#669
• Can't enable cache on local board pins-r#840

[nathanjmcdougall]

That makes sense, thanks.

What I propose for the documentation might just be a new example here:

pins-python/docs/get_started.qmd

Lines 35 to 40 in 8a4faf1

	```python
	board = board_local() # share data across R sessions on the same computer
	board = board_folder("~/Dropbox") # share data with others using dropbox
	board = board_folder("Z:\\my-team\pins") # share data using a shared network drive
	board = board_connect() # share data with Posit Connect
	```

to the effect of

board = pins.board("file", "Z:\\my-team\pins") # share data using a shared network drive with caching