Mailman 3 March 2006 - Python-announce-list

Reminder: Bug Day this Friday, 31st of March
by Georg Brandl 28 Mar '06

28 Mar '06

Hello, it's time for the 7th Python Bug Day, just before 2.5 alpha 1 is released. The aim of the bug day is to close as many bugs, patches and feature requests as possible, this time with a focus on small feature additions that can still go into the upcoming 2.5 alpha release. When? ^^^^^ The bug day will take place on Friday, March 31st, running from approximately 1PM to 8PM GMT (9AM to 4PM Eastern time). You don't need to be around all day; feel free to stop by for a few hours and contribute. Where and How? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To join, stop by the IRC channel #python-dev on irc.freenode.net, where efforts will be discussed and coordinated. We'll collaboratively go through the Python bug database at SourceForge and fix things as they come up. IMPORTANT: *No* prior knowledge of the Python source is necessary to participate! You'll get all assistance the developers can offer for starting up with helping, this is in fact a good opportunity to learn the basics. Bug day participation helps the developers and makes Python 2.5 a better release by reducing the backlog of bugs and patches. Plus, it's fun! More information ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For instructions and more information, see the Wiki page at http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/moinmoin/PythonBugDay Cheers, Georg

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ANNOUNCE: wxPython 2.6.3.0
by Robin Dunn 28 Mar '06

28 Mar '06

Announcing ---------- The 2.6.3.0 release of wxPython is now available for download at http://wxpython.org/download.php. There have been many enhancements and fixes implemented in this version, many of which are listed below and at http://wxpython.org/recentchanges.php. What is wxPython? ----------------- wxPython is a GUI toolkit for the Python programming language. It allows Python programmers to create programs with a robust, highly functional graphical user interface, simply and easily. It is implemented as a Python extension module that wraps the GUI components of the popular wxWidgets cross platform library, which is written in C++. wxPython is a cross-platform toolkit. This means that the same program will usually run on multiple platforms without modifications. Currently supported platforms are 32-bit Microsoft Windows, most Linux or other Unix-like systems using GTK2, and Mac OS X 10.2+, in most cases the native widgets are used on each platform. Changes in 2.6.3.0 ------------------ Change the wx.ListCtrl InsertStringItem wrapper to use the form that takes an imageIndex, and set the default to -1. This ensures that on wxMSW that if there is an image list but they don't specify an image, the native control doesn't use one anyway. wxMSW: wx.ListCtrl in report mode is now able to support images in other columns besides the first one. Simply pass an image index to SetStringItem. For virtual list controls you can specify the image to use on the extra columns by overriding OnGetItemColumnImage in your derived class. It is passed the item number and the column number as parameters, and the default version simply calls OnGetItemImage for column zero, or returns -1 for other columns. Switched to using SWIG 1.3.27 for generating the wrapper code. There are some small changes needed to SWIG to work around some bugs that wxPython exposes, and to be able to generate code that matches that which wxPython is using. If you are building wxPython yourself and need to modify any of the *.i files or to add your own, then you will want to be sure to use a matching SWIG. See wxPython/SWIG/README.txt in the source tarball for details. wx.Image.Copy now also copies the alpha channel. wxMSW: Fixed problem in wx.TextCtrl where using SetValue and wx.TE_RICH2 would cause the control to be shown if it was hidden. wxMSW: Numpad special keys are now distinguished from normal keys in key events. wxMSW: Multiline notebook tab label change now resizes the control correctly if an extra row is removed or added. wxMSW: On XP fall back to unthemed wxNotebook if specified orientation not available in the themed version. Added wx.Toolbar.GetToolsCount. Added wx.GridSizer.CalcRowsCols. Added wx.OutputStream.LastWrite. wxGTK: EVT_SET_CURSOR is now sent. wxGTK: Fix RequestMore for idle events. wxGTK: Implement user dashes for PS and GNOME printing. wxGTK: Correct update region code. Don't always invalidate the whole window upon resize. Reenable support for thewx.NO_FULL_REPAINT_ON_RESIZE flag. Also disable refreshing custom controls when focusing in and out. wx.lib.pubsub: Publisher is now able to parse a dotted notation string into a topic tuple. For example: subscribing to "timer.clock.seconds" is the same as subscribing to ("timer", "clock", "seconds"). Applied patch #1441370: lib.plot - allow passing in wx.Colour() Added wx.CommandEvent.GetClientData. Updated wxStyledTextCtrl to use version 1.67 of Scintilla. NOTE: The STC_LEX_ASP and STC_LEX_PHP lexers have been deprecated, you should use STC_LEX_HTML instead. wxSTC: Implemented fix for SF Bug #1436503. Delay the start of the DnD operation in case the user just intended to click, not drag. Updated the analogclock.py module to the new analogclock package from E. A. Tacao. Added the wx.lib.mixins.listctrl.CheckListCtrlMixin class from Bruce Who, which makes it easy to put checkboxes on list control items. Applied a patch from Christian Kristukat to wx.lib.plot that adds scrollbars when the plot is zoomed in, and also the ability to grab a zoomed plot and move it around with a mouse drag. XRCed updated to allow wxMenuBar to be created inside a wxFrame. -- Robin Dunn Software Craftsman http://wxPython.org Java give you jitters? Relax with wxPython!

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ANN: PyWeather 0.7.0
by Christopher Blunck 27 Mar '06

27 Mar '06

PyWeather contains weather related modules implemented in Python. Anything weather related is fair game for PyWeather. Currently PyWeather is limited to unit conversion, console reading, and data publication. But, future work can be added to PyWeather in any area. NEW IN THIS RELEASE: - Added wunderground publisher Website: http://oss.wxnet.org/pyweather -- WeatherNet Observations for station: home Temperature: 40.50F Pressure: 30.19in; Dew Point: 25.16F (54%) Wind: 224 at 0 mph Recorded: 23:59:58 03/27/06 (http://wsdl.wxnet.org/inquiry/binding.wsdl)

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Toronto and Area Python Users Group (PyGTA) Meeting Tuesday, 7pm at the Linux Caffe
by Mike C. Fletcher 27 Mar '06

27 Mar '06

We will be holding our regular meeting at our regular time, on the Fourth Tuesday of the Month from 7pm to 9pm at the (very cool) Linux Caffe (located at the Corner of Grace and Harbord). We're going with small topical discussions (and/or lightning talks) this time around, with more socialising and mingling time to let you swap stories and experiences. Likely topics: * Upcoming 2.5 features (generator coroutines, ctypes, cElementTree) * DebugHang module for Twisted * FibraNet Those who would like to do a short (impromptu or prepared) talk on a topic, just drop me a note (or tell me at the meeting) and I'll try to get things put together for you (at the very least we should have a net-attached laptop with Linux and Python 2.4). For the presenters; this is a good opportunity to work on your presentation skills in front of a friendly and forgiving audience. For the audience; this is a good opportunity to work on being a friendly and forgiving audience :) . Map with instructions on reaching LinuxCaffe is available off the official "next meeting" page in the Wiki: http://web.engcorp.com/pygta/wiki/NextMeeting Have fun all, Mike -- ________________________________________________ Mike C. Fletcher Designer, VR Plumber, Coder http://www.vrplumber.com http://blog.vrplumber.com

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 27)
by Peter Otten 27 Mar '06

27 Mar '06

QOTW: "Testing real examples in doctstrings, or external documentation like tutorials, is important because it's very frustrating for people reading the docs if the examples don't work as advertised." - Marc Rintsch "If you don't document what the sundry variables are FOR, you're really not documenting your code at all -- just listing the names of some attributes is far too weak." - Alex Martelli If unittest is the standard way to write testing code, why do we still have doctest? Because serious testers use both. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/b49d428f5… Coincidentally, Terry Hancock dedicates a large portion of his report from PyCON 2006 to the power and simplicity of doctest. http://blog.freesoftwaremagazine.com/users/t.hancock/2006/03/18/title_3 Do you have any recipes that you find indispensable in your daily work but that are not obvious to a beginner? Contribute them to Aahz' collection. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/8b752d91a… When using eval() is too dangerous you may still be able to facilitate Python's parsing infrastructure as Michael Spencer shows: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/789f2c8f7… Want to squeeze your precious unicode data into ASCII strings? FLundh's solution builds on character decomposition and unicode.translate()'s ability to replace one character with many. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/77196f64a90ea9bc Andrew Dalke explores the performance implications of various approaches to class instantiation and has collected a few quotes on the __slots__ feature. http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2006/03/19/class_inst… Andrew Clover has derived nice Windows Icons from the new Python logo. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/0ad44c95e81b93cb The mythical Python 3000 is mythical no more as you can watch it evolve on its own mailing list. Rumour has it that there is also a branch in subversion, only slighly obfuscated by its name. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2006-March/thread.html ======================================================================== 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/ 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 Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python hyperlinks retains a few gems. 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/topic/python/ (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… There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments for and against are occasionally entertained. 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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PyPy Tokyo sprint 23/4 - 29/4
by Anders Chrigström 27 Mar '06

27 Mar '06

Tokyo PyPy Sprint: 23rd - 29th April 2006 ============================================================ The next PyPy sprint is scheduled to take place 23rd- 29th April 2006 (Sunday-Saturday) in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. We will together with FSIJ (Free Software Initiative of Japan) aim to promote Python and PyPy. We therefor invite Japanese hackers knowledgeable in Python to join our sprint! We'll give newcomer-friendly introductions. To learn more about the new Python-in-Python implementation look here: http://codespeak.net/pypy For this sprint we are particularly interested in meeting and coding on PyPy together with interested Japanese Python hackers. Please register your interest at pypy-sprint(a)codespeak.net as soon as possible and we will help with any questions regarding getting started, pointing to relevant documentation etc. The PyPy team is curious and interested in the experience of hacking code for embedded devices and would love to discuss and get feedback on optimisation efforts and the current state of PyPy. Goals and topics of the sprint ------------------------------ Possible suggestions for topics are: - Work on gensqueak (our Squeak backend) or possibly other backends. - Implementing Python 2.5 features in PyPy. - Progress further on an 'rctypes' module aiming at letting us use a ctypes implementation of an extension module from the compiled pypy-c. - Writing ctypes implementations of modules to be used by the above tool. - Experimenting and improving performance of our garbage collectors. - Experiment with PyPy flexibility or other aspects of the implementation. - Possibly experiment with writing modules translatable for use both in PyPy and CPython. - Whatever participants want to do with PyPy or particular areas of PyPy (please send suggestions to the mailing list before to allow us to plan and give feedback) Location & Accomodation ------------------------ The sprint will be held at National Institute of AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, http://www.aist.go.jp/index_en.html), Akihahabara (the technical gadget district in Tokyo). Yutaka Niibe is our contact person there, helping with arranging facilities. Niibe is the chairman of FSIJ and they have invited us to sprint in Tokyo and we are very grateful for the help and interest we have recieved so far. The facilities we are sprinting in are located here: http://www.gtrc.aist.go.jp/en/access/index.html#Akihabara The actual address is: Akihabara Dai Bldg , 1-18-13 Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0021 Japan Phone: +81-3-5298-4729 Hotel areas - we are recommended to book hotels in Ueno and Asakusa (old town), from those areas there are only two metro stops to Akihabara. Please note that hotelrooms in Tokyo are often very small. http://www.wh-rsv.com/english/akihabara/index.html (nearest hotel to sprint location) http://www.greenhotel.co.jp/ochanomizu_e.html http://www.ohgai.co.jp/index-e.html (Ueno) http://www.toyoko-inn.com/e_hotel/00012/index.html (Asakusa) http://www.hotelnewkanda.com/ (second nearest, but no english page) Here is a url for booking hotels with not too unreasonable rates (see map): http://japan-hotelguide.com/hotels/Japan/Tokyo/index.htm For more general tourist information about travelling to Japan and Tokyo - please see: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/ http://www.japantravelinfo.com/ (really useful information regarding airfares, hotels, currency, phones etc etc) Comments on the weather: In end April it is ca 20 degrees Celsius. Exact times ----------- The public PyPy sprint is held Sunday 23rd - Saturday 29th April 2006. Hours will be from 10:00 until people have had enough. It's a good idea to arrive a day before the sprint starts and leave a day later. Sometimes people cannot stay for the whole sprint - you are welcome even if you can only stay for a day or a few days. Sunday: Starting at 10:00. This day is focused on getting to know PyPy enought to start to participate. We will hold a PyPy tutorial and an architectural overview. Planning meeting for the work to be done during the week and grouping of developers (pairs or groups mixing new participants with core developers). Dinner in the evening (Yutaka will arrange a place for us to go to). Monday-Tuesday: Starting at 10:00 with status meetings. Possible regrouping depending on the interest and progress of the various teams. Wednesday: Breakday (coding is allowed although we recommend taking a break). Thursday-Saturday: Starting at 10:00 with status meetings. Possible regrouping depending on the interest and progress of the various teams. Ending on Saturday with a Closure session - summing of the work and planning work to be done until the next sprint. Network, Food, currency ------------------------ We will have access to WiFi at AIST - please make sure you have wlan capabilities. Electricity outlets: 100V (adapters needed for european standard). Currency is Japanese yen. There are Citibank cash machines that accepts cash withdrawals from the major cards such as VISA and Mastercard. But it is a good idea to bring cash. Also note that cell phones (european) are not very compatible with the Japanese network. There are possibilities for 3G phones to hire a phone and put your simcard in there. At the airport (both Kansai and Narita) there are information and places were this can be arranged (to a cost of course). Food: well - japanese food is great (wether it is sushi, sashimi, tempura, sukiyaki, teriyaki.... Eating out is not that much differently prized than any large european town. There are of course restaurants serving other food than japanese (chinese, korean, McDonalds ;-). Please also note that vegetables and fruit is quite expensive in Japan. For more information - see tourist url:s above. Registration etc.pp. -------------------- Please subscribe to the `PyPy sprint mailing list`_, introduce yourself and post a note that you want to come. Feel free to ask any questions there! There also is a separate `Tokyo people`_ page tracking who is already thought to come. If you have commit rights on codespeak then you can modify yourself a checkout of http://codespeak.net/svn/pypy/extradoc/sprintinfo/tokyo/people.txt .. _`PyPy sprint mailing list`: http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/pypy-sprint .. _`Tokyo people`: http://codespeak.net/pypy/extradoc/sprintinfo/tokyo/people.html

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ANN: uuid-0.1 Released
by Jürgen Urner 26 Mar '06

26 Mar '06

uuid is a python module to generate RFC 4122 compatible UUIDs Somehow this module was missing in python, so I took over the struggle with the C sources and all those quirky bits and bytes. Most of them should now be in place to form one of these handy 128 bit identifiers. The module is capable of producing time, random, sha1 and md5 based uuids. For details see: http://home.arcor.de/jurner/python/

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Release: PySyck 0.61.2
by Kirill Simonov 26 Mar '06

26 Mar '06

A new version of PySyck is available at: http://pyyaml.org/wiki/PySyck PySyck is a Python binding to the Syck YAML parser and emitter. Changes from 0.61.1 to 0.61.2: * fix a leak in the parser (thanks to Jeff Johnson). -- xi

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[ANN] Firedrop 0.2.0 - The Python Blog Client
by Fuzzyman 26 Mar '06

26 Mar '06

It has finally happened, the release of `Firedrop 0.2.0 <http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/firedrop2/>`_. The impatient can download the new release here : `Firedrop 0.2.0 (1.3mb) <http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cgi-bin/voidspace/downman.py?file=firedrop2-0.2…>`_ .. note:: The first time you run version 0.2.0 it will convert your weblog config file to the new format. **Firedrop2** is the Python blog client with a host of features. These include : * RSS feed generation * Categories * Automatic archive generation * A powerful set of plugins, including spell checker and emailer * Entries can be made in text, HTML, ReST, textile, sextile or markdown markup * HTML templating system and macros for all sorts of tricks * Built in FTP capability for uploading your blog to a server * Because it's written in Python, it is easy to extend Firedrop or create new plugins for it This new release has been made possible by the hard work of `Stewart Midwinter <http://www.midtoad.org>`_. The changes and new features include : * Firedrop will now start up by opening a default site. * You can set the default site using the GUI. * Main file name changed to ``firedrop.pyw`` * `ConfigObj <http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/configobj.html>`_ is now used to edit all the config files. * Full support for all style elements (e.g. underline, bold) in four major markup formats: ReST, Sextile, Textile, Markdown (plus HTML). * New entries are created in a separate dialog that takes care of the markup. * Links are available to websites for the markup styles. * You can reset the app to a null site, and/or delete all entries. * You can force a full build of your site, or just update your site. * You can now create sites serving Article Collections or Items Lists (e.g. FAQs) in addition to Weblogs. * Firedrop2 now runs on Mac OS X and Linux in addition to Windows. * You can view logfile contents using the GUI. * Documentation has been updated to reflect these changes. There is a roadmap for future releases on the `Firedrop2 Trac Site <http://firedrop2.python-hosting.com>`_.

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ANN: eric3 3.8.2 release
by Detlev Offenbach 25 Mar '06

25 Mar '06

Hi, this is to let all of you know about the release of eric3 3.8.2. This version fixes a compatibility bug with the latest PyQt release (PyQt 3.16). Eric3 is a Python and Ruby IDE with batteries included. It is written using PyQt and is available via http://www.die-offenbachs.de/detlev/eric3.html Regards, Detlev -- Detlev Offenbach detlev(a)die-offenbachs.de

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