Mailman 3 October 1999 - Python-announce-list

PyAmulet 0.1
by Paul Sokolovsky 31 Oct '99

31 Oct '99

Hello python-announce-list, Alpha version of PyAmulet, new module for the Amulet GUI toolkit, is available. This version is made for OpenAmulet, newly maintained, supported and developed version by volunteers. You may read more about OpenAmulet below. As for Python, it is ideal language to be bound with this dynamic, flexible toolkit. (As an example, C++ code below rewritten in python: # Create an green rectangle r=Am.Rectangle(FILL_STYLE=Am.Green); # Cast magic spell upon it: # "Do Animate!" r.append(Am.Move_Grow_Interactor()) # after this, rectangle on screen can be dragged with mouse ) OpenAmulet homepage: http://www.openip.org PyAmulet homepage: http://www.openip.org/html/oa_pyamulet.html (sources and win32 binaries) Binary of OpenAmulet dll (needed for win32 bin PyAmulet): http://www.openip.org/oa/openamulet4.3-devel-mingw32-bin.zip To be more informative, some kind of blurb (somewhat lengthy and advocatic, sorry): ============= OpenAmulet, free cross-platform GUI Toolkit version 4.3 ------------------------------------------------------- Why yet another GUI toolkit? ---------------------------- First of all, it's not yet another GUI toolkit, it's *the* GUI toolkit. OpenAmulet is based on previous work of Amulet project (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/) held by User Interface Software Group in the Human Computer Interaction Institute in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (Brad A. Myers, Ellen Borison, Alan Ferrency, Rich McDaniel, Robert C. Miller, Andrew Faulring, Bruce D. Kyle, Patrick Doane, Andy Mickish, Alex Klimovitski). Amulet is their second toolkit, the C++ redesign of Garnet, written in Lisp and being classical example of nice and functional design. One of the intentions of writing Amulet in C++ was popularizing ideas not available to large audience and pushing it to production needs, in addition to research and educational ones. What are distinguishing features? --------------------------------- Briefly, OpenAmulet utilises Prototype-Instance (vs Class-Object) object system, uses Constraints as the means to maintain system's state and actions, and provides detached behaviour-oriented intercation model. More specifically, OpenAmulet emphasizes data-oriented programming. While "classical" (or, precisely, C++'s) object design preaches data hiding and interfacing via methods, Amulet has it "upside-down": all interfacing held via object's properties, and methods has only auxillary, system-internal role. Amulet has means to support such view of the world: * Prototype-instance object model Class-object model distinguishes two kinds of entities: 'classes', which can be instantiated, but not used, and 'objects' with opposite features. Prototype-instance approach doesn't have this distinction: any object can be both used as entity ready for processing and for instantiation of subobjects. Hence, class-object model is just constrained form of prototype-instance model, having stipulation above. Of course, Amulet object system is fully dynamic, allowing creation of new types of objects at runtime. * Demons and constraints How is it possible to interface via data? That's because it's possible to watch some object properties (or slots) and act upon changes. Low-level mechanism for this is demons. They are supposed to be eager and low-latency. For example, when size/position of graphical object changes, attached demons queue changing region for update. More high-level notion is constraint. Ideally constraints are mathematical equations, though may have side effects. With constraints slots of different objects can be linked in some way, for example top of one button may be equated to bottom of other. Afterwards, this relation is maintained automatically by system: wherewhere second button moved, first will be under it. Many current systems support constraints in ad hoc manner. For example, Tk's power to build quickly decent interfaces with pack is essentially stating (high-level) constraints on widgets. wxWindows' constraints are simplier and less amazing. What distinguishes Amulet here is fully generalized constraint support. Constraints can do anything (even loops are tried to be converged) on anything. Using ad hoc methods may give some benefits in some cases, for example, for example, laying out dialog with Amulet constraints is more verbose than with Tk's packs, but you can do things just not possible with Tk. * Behaviourial interaction model Contemplating evolution of GUI user-interaction techiques, following scale may be drawn: - (back to [your favorite 8-bit box] times) No interaction model Your code is mess with no obvious destinction with user-event handling and other code - MS Windows' message loop For each large-scaled entity (top-level window) you have "message procedure" which recieves all events (all they low-level) happening in that entity. Then you wonder to which lesser part it relates and act on that, if needed. - GTK, wxWindows, etc. event handlers, signals, maps, etc. each user-interactible object has bunch of (relatively low-level) events which may occur to it. Means to attach handler to needed event is provided. Handlers are independent and don't put burden on them. - Amulet's Interactors No usual graphic Amulet object has ability to interact with user. Interaction is supported by separate, external subsystem, by entities called 'Interactors' (of course, that's usual Amulet objects). Interactors function in high-level event terms, or behaviours. For example, there interactors for Selecting, Moving, Growing objects, Text-editing, etc. Low-level events, such as button- or key-press still handled in unified manner. Amulet widgets have interactors already attached. Behaviourial model means that it is very easy and clean to program highly interactive, direct-manipulation interfaces. E.g.: // Create an green rectangle Am_Object r=Am_Rectangle.Create().Set(Am_FILL_STYLE,Am_Green); // Cast magic spell upon it: // "Do Animate!" r.Add_Part(Am_Move_Grow_Interactor.Create()) // after this, rectangle on screen can be dragged with mouse What's more? ---------- Many, many more ;-) Crossplaformedness for X,Win32,Mac is worth immediate note. What's not? ----------- By current standards OpenAmulet has poor widgets set, lacking such things as trees/outlines, splitpanels, tabbed dialogs, etc. Where? ------ Latest sources, binaries, samples, language bindings, TODO lists ;-) available at http://www.openip.org/ ============= <A HREF="http://www.openip.org/html/oa_pyamulet.html">PyAmulet 0.1</A> - a module for the <A HREF="http://www.openip.org/">OpenAmulet</A>, highly dynamic GUI Toolkit. (30-Oct-99) Best regards, Paul mailto:paul-ml@is.lg.ua -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Oct 29)
by David Ascher 31 Oct '99

31 Oct '99

The Python world is hopping this week, with some high-profile announcements: Two books out this week! Fredrik Lundh (a.k.a. eff-bot) published his guide to the standard Python library as an eMatter volume: http://www.pythonware.com/people/fredrik/librarybook.htm David Beazley releases a great summary of the essential Python information in his most excellent book (I know, I reviewed it): http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp&AN=540981804 Frank Willison is still pushing Python and Zope at ORA, in very sneaky ways: http://www.oreilly.com/frank/rossum_1099.html http://www.oreilly.com/frank/ The Python Jobs board is live, and already populated with quite a few job offers, some at marquee companies, some at intriguing startups: http://www.python.org/Jobs.html Marc-Andre Lemburg bit the bullet and with help from many, has a module which gives much more information than sys.platform: http://starship.skyport.net/~lemburg/platform.py There's an interesting discussion on whether multimethods (a.k.a. multiple dispatch) could and should be used in Python. http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp&AN=540981803 http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp&AN=542008708 Barry Warsaw releases JPython 1.1b4, fixing bugs and increasing speed both: http://www.jpython.org ========================================================================= Everything you want is probably one or two clicks away in these pages: Python.org's Python Language Website is the center of Pythonia http://www.python.org Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group mailing lists http://www.python.org/sigs/ Python Consortium emerges as an independent nexus of activity http://www.python.org/consortium Python To-Do List anticipates some of Python's future direction http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/todo.py Python Journal is at work on its second issue http://www.pythonjournal.com Links2Go is a new semi-automated link collection; it's impressive what AI can generate http://www.links2go.com/search?search=python Archive probing trick of the trade: http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=&DBS=2&ST=PS&defaultOp=AND&LNG=ALL&f… Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here: http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html or http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=~g%20comp.lang.python%20Python-URL%21 Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome. http://www.egroups.com/list/python-url-leads/ To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning, ask <claird(a)neosoft.com> to subscribe. Mention "Python-URL!". -- The Python-URL! Team-- Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and sponsor the "Python-URL!" project. == Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html claird(a)NeoSoft.com +1 281 996 8546 FAX -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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JPython 1.1 beta 4
by Barry A. Warsaw 29 Oct '99

29 Oct '99

I'm pleased to announce the release of JPython 1.1 beta 4, the 100% Pure Java implementation of the Python language. Below is a summary of changes since 1.1 beta 3. Enjoy, -Barry New JPython features and bug fixes - fixed a bug related to loading anonymous inner classes (PR#201). This is an experimental patch. See registry file for entry python.options.extendedClassLoader - fixed Java exceptions when calling apply() with a bogus 3rd argument (PR#208) - fixed a 1.1beta3 problem with method objects having their im_self mysteriously changed out from under them (PR#186). - fixed problems with Python classes being deeply derived from Java classes and interfaces (PR#178, PR#195). - Improved memory footprint when using exec(). - Dead threads are now reaped from thread state cache (Drew Morrissey). - Tuples, dictionaries, and strings now use fast method lookup mechanism. Improved CPython 1.5.2 compatibility - md5 module supported (no need to download anything extra) - dir() on function objects now returns a list containing __doc__, func_doc, __namme__, func_name, func_globals, func_defaults, func_code. __doc__/func_doc is writable (but not func_defaults and func_code, which are writable in CPython). (PR#192) - dir() on code objects returns a list containing co_name, co_argcount, co_varnames, co_filename, co_firstlineno, co_flags. Not supported: co_nlocals, co_code, co_consts, co_names, co_lnotab, co_stacksize. All attributes are read-only. - dir() on method objects returns a list containing im_self, im_func, im_class, __doc__, __name__. These attributes are read-only. <A HREF="http://www.jpython.org">JPython 1.1 beta 4</A> - a 100% Pure Java implementation of the Python language. (28-Oct-99) -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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AmigaPython 1.5.2 build 4
by Irmen de Jong 29 Oct '99

29 Oct '99

AmigaPython 1.5.2 - build 4 The Amiga version of Python. WHAT IT IS: This is the Python interpreter (version 1.5.2) for AmigaDOS. WHAT'S NEW ? - Prints correct string when command `exit' is issued at the prompt. - Fixed some missing 1.5.2 issues, like the os.error exception type. - A new time.strftime which passes the test. - Fixed amiga.crc32 function to comply with CRC32 standards. WHERE CAN I GET IT ? >From Aminet <http://us.aminet.net/~aminet/>, in the dev/lang directory: Python152.lha Python language 1.5.2 (bin+lib) Python152_Doc.lha Python 1.5.2 documentation (HTML) Python152_Src.lha Python language 1.5.2 (source) SlimPython.lha AmigaPython stripped edition (source) Also have a look at my Python pages at <http://www.bigfoot.com/~irmen/python.html>. It comes with a Python-style license, but is otherwise free for commercial and non-commercial use. REFERENCE: <A HREF="http://www.bigfoot.com/~irmen/python.html">AmigaPython 1.5.2</A> - AmigaDOS port of Python 1.5.2. (27-Oct-99) == Irmen de Jong - irmen(a)bigfoot.com -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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Russian mailing list for Python, Zope
by Oleg Broytmann 27 Oct '99

27 Oct '99

Hello! Russian-speaking Pythoneers, Zopers unite! I am trying to revive the mailing list for russian-speaking. I also want to add the Zope topic to the list. I am writing and debuggung simple web site based on Zope, and soon will provide read-only access to the managemenet interface for everyone who want to learn how to install, configure and run Zope application. Anyone interesting to talk about beloved Python language and Zope in Russian please subscribe: echo subscribe python | mail majordomo(a)list.glas.net It is stndard majordomo, all commands available, including "help". Our webpages are here: http://www.glasnet.ru/~jno/Python/ http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/motorola/668/ http://www.chat.ru/~pythonrus/ Oleg. ---- Oleg Broytmann National Research Surgery Centre http://sun.med.ru/~phd/ Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN. <A HREF="http://www.glasnet.ru/~jno/Python/">Russian mailing list</A> - Russian-speaking mailing list for Python and Zope. (27-Oct-99) -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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Zope Weekly News - Wed, 27 Oct 1999
by Amos Latteier 27 Oct '99

27 Oct '99

Hi, As usual, the vast quantity of Zope activity this week is a bit overwhelming. One notable trend is the blossoming of not only community contributed Zope software, but community contributed Zope documentation. For example, there are currently 75 How-Tos on Zope.org! In addition, this week also saw several announcements for documentation on writing Python Products. * Jon Udell wrote an article entitled "XML-RPC Programming with Zope" for Zope for byte.com. http://www.byte.com/column/BYT19991021S0014 * Python God Andrew M. Kuchling started a discussion about implementing XML-RPC Methods for Zope. http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/1999-October/001949.html * O'Reilly Editor-in-Chief Frank Willison announced that he has nothing to say about any rumored Zope book ;-) http://www.oreilly.com/frank/ * Butch Landingin released Squishdot 0.3.2 which is a bugfix release. http://squishdot.org/Download/Squishdot * Scott Roberts announced preliminary support for FastCGI. This package extends ZServer to allow it to speak to web servers that support FastCGI. This is similar to PCGI but more efficient. http://www.zope.org/Members/sroberts/fastcgi-support * Ross Lazarus announced an updated LDAP adapter Product. It acts like an acl_users folder but allows authentication from an LDAP server. http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-October/012662.html * Anthony Baxter released SQL Session v.0.1.1 which provides persistent session objects which are stored in a SQL database. http://www.zope.org/Members/anthony/software/SQLSession http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-October/012642.html * Ken Manheimer announced a How-To entitled "Debugging Zope Python Code" which, while incomplete, is full of juicy tips for Zope hackers. http://www.zope.org/Members/klm/debuggingzope * Garth Kidd released a How-To and an example Zope Product which illustrates extending Zope in Python. http://www.zope.org/Members/gtk/Boring/HowTo-Boring * Speaking of examples of Zope Products in Python, Jeff Rush also posted an example Python Product. http://starship.python.net/crew/jrush/Zope/ * Rounding out this week's Python Product announcements, Amos Latteier will give a talk on "Extending Zope in Python" at the Portland, Oregon Python Interest Group (PORPIGgies) meeting on November 1. http://www.egroups.com/group/porpig/4.html * Jonothan Farr released a Local File System Product. This allows you to create objects which provide controlled access to the local filesystem http://www.zope.org/Members/jfarr/LocalFS * Alexandre Ratti wrote a How-To which describes custom date formats. http://www.zope.org/Members/AlexR/CustomDateFormats * Michel Pelletier announced a preliminary Portal Tool Kit model on the zope-dev list. The PTK may not be complete vaporware after all ;-) http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/1999-October/001908.html * Oleg Broytmann posted a patch to load_site.py which allows you to create more Zopish DTML Documents from imported HTML files. http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/1999-October/001935.html * A.M. Kuchling released ODP 0.03 This is a Zope product which allows browsing of the Open Directory Project's RDF dumps. The ODP is the information which powers the search engine at http://dmoz.org/ http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/zope/ODP.html http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-October/012622.html * Tim Wilson started a discussion of Zope and RDF which soon expanded to include syndication and RSS. http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-October/012721.html * Despite the Perl conspiracy ;-) Zope showed up on several times and in a positive light on another Slashdot thread. http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/99/10/16/166256.shtml * Amos Latteier posted to the ZDP list concerning a possible future turning over of the Zope Guides to the Zope community. http://www.zope.org/pipermail/zdp/1999-October/000919.html Until next week. -Amos == Amos Latteier mailto:amos@digicool.com Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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New Book: "Python Essential Reference"
by David Beazley 27 Oct '99

27 Oct '99

*** Hot off the press! *** Python Essential Reference By David Beazley (with a foreword by Guido van Rossum) New Riders Publishing ISBN 0735709017 350 pages. I'm pleased to announce the release of a new Python reference book that is now shipping to a bookstore near you. In a nutshell, the Python Essential Reference is a concise and comprehensive reference to the Python language and its large library of modules. This book is designed to be a compact and highly usable companion to other Python books and the online documentation. Some of its features include: - Comprehensive coverage of the Python tutorial, language reference, library reference, and C extension API. - Documentation for more than 100 modules in the standard Python library. - A concise presentation style in which material is not obscured by tutorial-style examples, programming lessons, advocacy, and language comparisons. As a result, the book serves as an excellent companion to introductory books such as Learning Python. - Expanded coverage of many library modules. In particular, much of the information contained in man pages and other books has been added to clarify topics in network programming, operating system interfaces, and other advanced topics. In addition, a variety of new examples have been added to further expand upon certain topics. - A compact design. I have taken great liberty in rewording, abridging, and reorganizing much of the existing Python documentation. Obsolete modules, fluff, and a number of more obscure topics have been omitted. In addition, the publisher has done a fantastic job of typesetting the book into a highly compact form factor that is easy to carry on the plane, take to a dinner date, or go just about anywhere one would expect to be writing a Python program. The bottom line: this is a highly compact and intelligent book that is intended to serve as a useful reference for Python programmers. I hope that you find it to be a useful addition to your Python programming library. More information can be found by following the links on http://www.python.org/psa/bookstore Please support the PSA by purchasing the book through the above site. Cheers, Dave <A HREF="http://www.python.org/psa/bookstore/">Python Essential Reference</A> - a new Python reference book; a concise and comprehensive reference to the Python language and its large library of modules. (25-Oct-99) -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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Python Consortium Announcement
by Guido van Rossum 27 Oct '99

27 Oct '99

The Python Consortium is officially launched today. As proposed at the Python Conference last year in Houston, several big Python players are joining forces to further and promote Python and JPython development. Current members of the Python Consortium are: Full members: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Hewlett-Packard Associate members: Digital Creations Interet Corporation Foretec Seminars For more information about the consortium, see the Python Consortium webpage on Python website: http://www.python.org/consortium/. We issued a press release which you can find at http://www.python.org/consortium/press1.html. If you are currently a corporate PSA member, consider joining the consortium instead. More power to Python! --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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4XSLT 0.7.2
by uche.ogbuji＠fourthought.com 27 Oct '99

27 Oct '99

FourThought LLC (http://FourThought.com) announces the release of 4XSLT 0.7.2 ----------------------- A python implementation of the W3C's XSLT language 4XSLT is an XML transformation processor based on the W3C's specification for the XSLT transform language. http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt Currently, 4XSLT supports a sub-set of the October 8th working draft of XSLT including the following: Full expression support and attribute-value template expansion xsl:include xsl:import xsl:template xsl:apply-imports xsl:apply-templates xsl:copy xsl:call-template xsl:if xsl:for-each xsl:choose xsl:element xsl:when xsl:attribute xsl:otherwise xsl:text xsl:message xsl:value-of xsl:variable xsl:processing-instruction xsl:param xsl:comment xsl:with-param xsl:strip-space xsl:key xsl:preserve-space xsl:copy-of and, of course, literal elements and text 4XSLT produces its result tree by throwing events from the emerging SAX 2 standard to a handler, so it can be easily modified to supply results to any SAX 2 consumer. News ---- Changes in 0.7.2 ---------------- - Implemented named templates - Implemented the following instructions: o comment o copy o call-template o param o with-param - Packaging and implementation bug-fixes More info and Obtaining 4XSLT ----------------------------- Please see http://FourThought.com/4Suite/4XSLT Or you can download 4XSLT from ftp://FourThought.com/pub/4Suite/4XSLT 4XSLT is distributed under a license similar to that of Python. == Uche Ogbuji uche.ogbuji(a)fourthought.com Consulting Member, FourThought LLC http://FourThought.com http://OpenTechnology.org <A HREF="http://FourThought.com/4Suite/4XSLT">4XSLT 0.7.2</A> - XML transformation processor based on the W3C specification for the XSLT transform language. (21-Oct-99) -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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4XPath 0.7.2
by uche.ogbuji＠fourthought.com 27 Oct '99

27 Oct '99

FourThought LLC (http://FourThought.com) announces the release of 4XPath 0.7.2 ----------------------- A python implementation of the W3C's XPath language 4XPath implements the W3C XPath language for indicating and selecting XML document components. http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath 4XPath implements the full 4XPath specification except for the lang core function. News ---- This version fixes several packaging and implementation bug-fixes. More info and Obtaining 4XPath ----------------------------- Please see http://FourThought.com/4Suite/4XPath Or you can download 4XPath from ftp://FourThought.com/pub/4Suite/4XPath 4XPath is distributed under a license similar to that of Python. == Uche Ogbuji uche.ogbuji(a)fourthought.com Consulting Member, FourThought LLC http://FourThought.com http://OpenTechnology.org <A HREF="http://FourThought.com/4Suite/4XPath">4XPath 0.7.2</A> - implementation of the W3C XPath language for indicating and selecting XML document components. (21-Oct-99) -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce(a)python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------

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