Mailman 3 May 2005 - Python-announce-list

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (May 24)
by Simon Brunning 24 May '05

24 May '05

QOTW: "If you're sick of answering newbie questions, and don't think you can do so politely, for the sake of the community, DON'T! You're not that necessary." - Joal Heagney "Who controls the runtime also controls the language." - Kay Schluehr Jake tells us about the \r control character, which allows one to refresh a terminal line. Many people help him to use it from Python, and Fredrik warns him that it might well not work from an IDE: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/5… John Reese asks whether he needs to explicitly close file objects, or whether reference counting will take care of it for him. Martin v. Löwis shows a scenario that demonstrates that ref counting won't always close files when you think it will: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/7… Simon Percivall and Jp Calderone show Michael Chermside how to process subprocess module output a line at a time: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/d… WSGI Explorations with Python - Mike Orr investigates WSGI and Paste: http://rex.kicks-ass.net/python/wsgi-explorations.html Len, an "old time Cobol programmer", asks for some advice on storing data: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/c… Dustin is refactoring some unpythonic code that uses a very nasty import mechanism, but now he's having trouble with circular imports: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/8… A Matter Of Questions - Ben Last tells us how he's using Python for data cleansing, amongst other things, while building a Playstation Music Quiz: http://www.livejournal.com/users/benlast/24719.html William Park wants to test how similar two strings are. This is more complicated than it sounds... http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/4… Create an ODBC data source in the fly with Python: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/414879 Paul Rubin investigates how the super() function works with multiple inheritance. A number of people clear things up for him. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/5… Notable releases: pysqlite 2.0.2 http://pysqlite.org/ PyPy 0.6 (!) http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/8… ======================================================================== Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in these pages: Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional center of Pythonia http://www.python.org Notice especially the master FAQ http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the marvelous daily python url http://www.pythonware.com/daily Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new) World-Wide Web articles related to Python. http://www.awaretek.com/nowak/mygale.html While cosmetically similar, Mygale and the Daily Python-URL are utterly different in their technologies and generally in their results. For far, FAR more Python reading than any one mind should absorb, much of it quite interesting, several pages index much of the universe of Pybloggers. http://lowlife.jp/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/PythonProgrammersWeblog http://www.planetpython.org/ http://mechanicalcat.net/pyblagg.html comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be sure to scan this newsgroup weekly. http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python.announce Steve Bethard, Tim Lesher, and Tony Meyer continue the marvelous tradition early borne by Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson and Brett Cannon of intelligently summarizing action on the python-dev mailing list once every other week. http://www.python.org/dev/summary/ The Python Package Index catalogues packages. http://www.python.org/pypi/ The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references to all sorts of Python resources. http://www.vex.net/~x/parnassus/ Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group mailing lists http://www.python.org/sigs/ The Python Business Forum "further[s] the interests of companies that base their business on ... Python." http://www.python-in-business.org Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're subject with a vision of what the language makes practical. http://www.pythonology.com/success The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official responsibility for Python's development and maintenance. http://www.python.org/psf/ Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation. http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches. http://www.google.com/groups?as_usubject=weekly%20python%20patch Cetus collects Python hyperlinks. http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html Python FAQTS http://python.faqts.com/ The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and interesting recipes. http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are http://www.python.org/channews.rdf http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi http://python.de/backend.php For more, see http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?ShowMatch=python&ShowStatus=all The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a SourceForge reincarnation. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=355470&group_id=5470&func=browse http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0042.html The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com. editor(a)pythonjournal.com and editor(a)pythonjournal.cognizor.com welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work. del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary. It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence. http://del.icio.us/tag/python *Py: the Journal of the Python Language* http://www.pyzine.com Archive probing tricks of the trade: http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python&num=100 http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=site%3Dgroups%26group%3Dcomp.lang.pyth… Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here: http://www.ddj.com/topics/pythonurl/ (requires subscription) http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=python-url+group:comp.lang.python*&s… http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant) or http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lan… Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome. E-mail to <Python-URL(a)phaseit.net> should get through. To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning (approximately), ask <claird(a)phaseit.net> 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.

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[ANN] IronPython 0.7.5 & Boo 0.5.4
by D H 24 May '05

24 May '05

Updates were recently released by both the IronPython and Boo projects: IronPython 0.7.5 was released for .NET 2.0. http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/ironpython Bug fixes: * Can't Open 2 or more IronPythonConsoles * File share error when opening the file for reading multiple times * Generate assembly in the same directory as the Python source * Can't OR flags together - note that to use bitwise operations on enums, the [Flags] attribute must be set on the enum * sorted() not implemented * Failed to sort list with mixed types * Remove nstr and zip2 from __builtins__ * Can't raise a long to an exponent * dir and __dict__ malfunction * Old class cannot be instantiated when passing parameters by name class A: def __init__(self, height=20, width=30): self.area = height * width a = A(width = 2) * Old style class cannot override __getattr__ * Initialization of the map using lambda is incorrect * Method lookup broken again - this was a regression in our dynamic method resolution code reported by Microsoft Research * PythonEngine Execute method runs only discreet statements For the full announcement see: http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/news/newsitem.aspx?id=ad7acff7-ab1e-4bc… ---- Boo 0.5.4 was released for .NET 1.1 and Mono. http://boo.codehaus.org/ Changes: * explicit interface members: def IDisposable.Dispose(): * char literals: char('f') * unicode literals in strings: \u0032 * a Set class (Boo.Lang.Useful.Collections.Set) * Singleton design pattern implementation (Boo.Lang.Useful.Attributes.SingletonAttribute) * the compiler will now call class provided '==' and '!=' operators; * the compiler will now look for an implicit conversion operator to boolean when evaluating the conditions for the if/while/unless statements * the version of antlr shipped with boo can now generate boo code. In other words you can now finally write parsers in your favorite programming language! * 'for' and unpack statements now also work with IEnumerator allowing fine grained control over iteration * better support for value typed properties * extended generator expression syntax * the 'in' and 'not in' operators will now work with any type that provides a op_Member and op_NotMember implementation respectively Full announcement: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/boolang/browse_frm/thread/141c452679fa8…

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ANNOUNCE: twill v0.7, scriptable Web testing
by C. Titus Brown 23 May '05

23 May '05

ANNOUNCING twill v0.7. twill is a simple Web scripting language built on top of Python and mechanize. It's designed for automated testing of Web sites, but it may be useful for anybody who needs to deal with Web sites (with e.g. logins and cookies) in a non-interactive manner. twill is a reimplementation of Cory Dodt's PBP. A twill script looks like this: # go to the /. login page go http://slashdot.org/login.pl # fill in the form fv 1 unickname test fv 1 upasswd test submit # ok, there's no such account ;). show error HTML. show --- This is the first public release of twill, version 0.7. (Tagline: "It seems usable to me, but then I'm its author.") With this release, I'm looking for general feedback on usability, as well as suggestions on additional use cases. Download directly here: http://darcs.idyll.org/~t/projects/twill-0.7.tar.gz Documentation is online at http://www.idyll.org/~t/www-tools/twill.html --- Miscellaneous details: twill is implemented in Python and uses pyparsing and mechanize. In addition to the existing simple command language, twill can easily be extended with Python. twill also provides a fairly simple and well-documented wrapper around mechanize. twill scripts can be recorded with maxq, although scripts may require some hand tweaking at the moment. See the twill documentation for more information. twill does not understand JavaScript, I'm sorry to say. --titus, titus(a)caltech.edu

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[ANN] Release 0.38 of Task Coach
by Frank Niessink 23 May '05

23 May '05

Hi all, I'm pleased to announce release 0.38 of Task Coach. New in this release: Features added: - Simplified Chinese user interface added, thanks to limodou. - Autosave setting to automatically save after every change (1188194). - Backup setting to create a backup when opening a Task Coach file. - Added preference dialog to edit preferences not related to the view settings. - Now using gettext for i18n. What is Task Coach? Task Coach is a simple task manager that allows for hierarchical tasks, i.e. tasks in tasks. Task Coach is open source (GPL) and is developed using Python and wxPython. You can download Task Coach from: http://taskcoach.niessink.com https://sourceforge.net/projects/taskcoach/ A binary installer is available for Windows XP, in addition to the source distribution. Note that Task Coach is alpha software, meaning that it is wise to back up your task file regularly, and especially when upgrading to a new release. Cheers, Frank

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first release of PyPy
by hpk＠trillke.net 21 May '05

21 May '05

The PyPy 0.6 release -------------------- *The PyPy Development Team is happy to announce the first public release of PyPy after two years of spare-time and half a year of EU funded development. The 0.6 release is eminently a preview release.* What it is and where to start ----------------------------- Getting started: http://codespeak.net/pypy/index.cgi?doc/getting_started.html PyPy Documentation: http://codespeak.net/pypy/index.cgi?doc PyPy Homepage: http://codespeak.net/pypy/ PyPy is a MIT-licensed reimplementation of Python written in Python itself. The long term goals are an implementation that is flexible and easy to experiment with and retarget to different platforms (also non-C ones) and such that high performance can be achieved through high-level implementations of dynamic optimisation techniques. The interpreter and object model implementations shipped with 0.6 can be run on top of CPython and implement the core language features of Python as of CPython 2.3. PyPy passes around 90% of the Python language regression tests that do not depend deeply on C-extensions. Some of that functionality is still made available by PyPy piggy-backing on the host CPython interpreter. Double interpretation and abstractions in the code-base make it so that PyPy running on CPython is quite slow (around 2000x slower than CPython ), this is expected. This release is intended for people that want to look and get a feel into what we are doing, playing with interpreter and perusing the codebase. Possibly to join in the fun and efforts. Interesting bits and highlights --------------------------------- The release is also a snap-shot of our ongoing efforts towards low-level translation and experimenting with unique features. * By default, PyPy is a Python version that works completely with new-style-classes semantics. However, support for old-style classes is still available. Implementations, mostly as user-level code, of their metaclass and instance object are included and can be re-made the default with the ``--oldstyle`` option. * In PyPy, bytecode interpretation and object manipulations are well separated between a bytecode interpreter and an *object space* which implements operations on objects. PyPy comes with experimental object spaces augmenting the standard one through delegation: * an experimental object space that does extensive tracing of bytecode and object operations; * the 'thunk' object space that implements lazy values and a 'become' operation that can exchange object identities. These spaces already give a glimpse in the flexibility potential of PyPy. See demo/fibonacci.py and demo/sharedref.py for examples about the 'thunk' object space. * The 0.6 release also contains a snapshot of our translation-efforts to lower level languages. For that we have developed an annotator which is capable of infering type information across our code base. The annotator right now is already capable of successfully type annotating basically *all* of PyPy code-base, and is included with 0.6. * From type annotated code, low-level code needs to be generated. Backends for various targets (C, LLVM,...) are included; they are all somehow incomplete and have been and are quite in flux. What is shipped with 0.6 is able to deal with more or less small/medium examples. Ongoing work and near term goals --------------------------------- Generating low-level code is the main area we are hammering on in the next months; our plan is to produce a PyPy version in August/September that does not need to be interpreted by CPython anymore and will thus run considerably faster than the 0.6 preview release. PyPy has been a community effort from the start and it would not have got that far without the coding and feedback support from numerous people. Please feel free to give feedback and raise questions. contact points: http://codespeak.net/pypy/index.cgi?contact contributor list: http://codespeak.net/pypy/index.cgi?doc/contributor.html have fun, Armin Rigo, Samuele Pedroni, Holger Krekel, Christian Tismer, Carl Friedrich Bolz PyPy development and activities happen as an open source project and with the support of a consortium funded by a two year EU IST research grant. Here is a list of partners of the EU project: Heinrich-Heine University (Germany), AB Strakt (Sweden) merlinux GmbH (Germany), tismerysoft GmbH(Germany) Logilab Paris (France), DFKI GmbH (Germany) ChangeMaker (Sweden)

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ANN: PyTest v0.5.0
by Christopher Blunck 21 May '05

21 May '05

PyTest v0.5.0 ------------- This is a small package that facilitates the unit testing process by aggregating PyUnit tests and making them easier to call from the command line and from within other unit tests. Typical PyUnit tests are written in a 1-1 relationship with the module they test. Module "foo.py" is typically tested with module "test_foo.py". In packages with multiple modules it can become cumbersome to run all of the unit tests from the command line. One could write an aggregator "test_all.py" module and have it call into each "test_*.py" module to retrieve a TestCase to assemble a suite. However, that approach requires 2 modifications each time a unit test is added (one modification for the test itself, and one modification in test_all.py). PyTest can run all of the unit tests in a directory via the command line by locating all modules that begin with "test_". Reflection is then used to extract the TestCase class, and a suite is constructed reflecting all test cases. Additionally, PyTest can be used programmatically in a test_all.py. Please see my site for more info: http://oss.wxnet.org/pytest -c -- WeatherNet Observations for station: home Temperature: 48.60F Pressure: 29.82in; Dew Point: 46.05F (91%) Wind: 312 at 0 mph Recorded: 00:04:40 05/21/05 (http://wsdl.wxnet.org/home/binding.wsdl)

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ANN: PyWeather v0.5.0
by Christopher Blunck 21 May '05

21 May '05

PyWeather v0.5.0 ---------------- PyWeather is a collection of weather related modules that are tested to work. These modules are capable of performing conversion calculations for many common meteorological units. See the following URL for more details: http://oss.wxnet.org/pyweather -c -- WeatherNet Observations for station: home Temperature: 49.50F Pressure: 29.82in; Dew Point: 46.65F (90%) Wind: 312 at 0 mph Recorded: 23:25:01 05/20/05 (http://wsdl.wxnet.org/home/binding.wsdl)

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Announcing : pyglfw
by Sylvain Hellegouarch 21 May '05

21 May '05

Hello folks, I am please to announce the first release of pyglfw, a python binding for GLFW written as an extension module. GLFW is simple framework acting like a glue between OpenGL and the system. The aim of pyglfw is simply for me to get my hands on writing an extension for Python, so this is quite an alpha code I release. Although it works fine, it might need some fixing in some areas. Please have a look at it and feel free to let me know what you think about it. Here is the hope page of pyglfw : http://www.defuze.org/oss/pyglfw/ Regards, - Sylvain ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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ZODB 3.4 beta 1 released
by Tim Peters 21 May '05

21 May '05

I'm pleased to announce the release of ZODB 3.4 beta 1. This corresponds to the ZODB that will ship in Zope 2.8b2. You can download a source tarball or Windows installer from: http://zope.org/Products/ZODB3.4 Note that there are two Windows installers, for Python 2.3 (2.3.5 is recommended) and Python 2.4 (2.4.1 is recommended). ZODB 3.4b1 contains many bugfixes and new features, including: - savepoint/rollback support, a powerful generalization of subtransactions allowing to revert to any savepoint'ed state within a transaction - auto-synchronization with storages after a transaction commit or abort, and at the explict start (transaction.begin()) of a transaction - a way to register callbacks invoked just before a transaction starts to commit -- see the new transaction.beforeCommitHook() - a new release of ZConfig See the news file for details: http://zope.org/Products/ZODB3.4/NEWS.html Note that ZODB 3.4 does not support any version of Zope 2.6 or 2.7. Current Zope 2.8 and Zope 3 development use ZODB 3.4. The ZODB 3.3 line is officially retired (3.3.1 final was the last release in the 3.3 line).

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dllimporter -- import dlls for zip archived or frozen applications
by Dieter Maurer 20 May '05

20 May '05

'Dllimporter' is a package to facilitate the import of shared libraries (aka dlls or extension modules) for Python applications running from a zip archive or an executable (a frozen application). The standard Python import mechanism cannot import extension modules being part of a zip archived or frozen package. 'Dllimporter' overcomes this restriction. The package provides a class 'dllimporter' the instances of which implement Pythons 'importer' protocol (see PEP-0302). These instances are designed to be used as importers on Pythons 'sys.meta_path' (again see PEP-0302, for details). Download: http://www.dieter.handshake.de/pyprojects/dllimporter.tgz Dieter

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