from urllib import urlopen
def most_prolific_authors():
    """
    Return the list of most prolific DBLP authors
    http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/about/prolific.html
    The number of publications listed in DBLP for an author is no indication for the quality or importance of her/his work.
    """
    url = 'http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/prolific/index.html'
    doc = urlopen(url).read()
    start = doc.find('number of publications / names')
    end_of_cloud = doc.find('DBLP lists',start)
    authors = []
    while(True):
        start = doc.find('html">',start)
        if start == -1 or start>end_of_cloud:
            return authors
        end = doc.find('</a>',start)
        name = doc[start+6:end]
        if not isNumber(name):
            authors.append(name)
        start = end+14 # </a></td></tr>
    return authors