Mailman 3 March 2006 - Python-announce-list

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 20)
by Peter Otten 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

QOTW: "Anything with 'Python' in its name can't market Python well." - Iain Bicking "Who really cares whether NASA uses Python? One thing I learned from having to sit through too many software marketing presentations is that organizations like NASA are to software what the Library of Congress is to books." - Steven Lumos on comp.lang.ruby How would you compare two strings when you don't care about whitespace? Hint: no regular expressions needed. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/2ad8fae9c… Jarek Zgoda's hack seems to be the most reliable way to get localized month names. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/7d8e318b9… Python 2.5 is scheduled for August 19, 2006. Among the highlights are the with-statement simplifying reliable resource acquisition/release and Fredrik Lundh's ElementTree. When bugs due to clever workarounds made it into the standard library Guido finally gave in, so there will be an inline-if/else, too. Use with discretion :-) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/f6f95174484c24cc Experienced developers wrestle with thorny deployment issues. http://blog.ianbicking.org/packaging-python.html Is coding a text adventure? Matt Webb and his co-developers think so. They use Python as the tried and tested tool to explore new ideas. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70413-0.html?tw=wn_technology_4 Iain Bicking shares his thoughts about the new python.org website and marketing Python. http://blog.ianbicking.org/python-marketing-2006.html You don't always need a big fat office suite to get your data out of an Excel spreadsheet. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/af8f54841… Stackless Python has been ported to Python 2.4.2. http://www.stackless.com/Members/rmtew/pycon2006Result ======================================================================== 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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py2exe 0.6.5 released
by Jimmy Retzlaff 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

py2exe 0.6.5 released ===================== py2exe is a Python distutils extension which converts Python scripts into executable Windows programs, able to run without requiring a Python installation. Console and Windows (GUI) applications, Windows NT services, exe and dll COM servers are supported. Changes in 0.6.5: * Fixed modulefinder / mf related bugs introduced in 0.6.4. This will be most evident when working with things like win32com.shell and xml.xpath. * Files no longer keep read-only attributes when they are copied as this was causing problems with the copying of some MS DLLs. Changes in 0.6.4: * New skip-archive option which copies the Python bytecode files directly into the dist directory and subdirectories - no archive is used. * An experimental new custom-boot-script option which allows a boot script to be specified (e.g., --custom-boot-script=cbs.py) which can do things like installing a customized stdout blackhole. See py2exe's boot_common.py for examples of what can be done. The custom boot script is executed during startup of the executable immediately after boot_common.py is executed. * Thomas Heller's performance improvements for finding needed modules. * Mark Hammond's fix for thread-state errors when a py2exe created executable tries to use a py2exe created COM DLL. Changes in 0.6.3: * First release assembled by py2exe's new maintainer, Jimmy Retzlaff. Code changes in this release are from Thomas Heller and Gordon Scott. * The dll-excludes option is now available on the command line. It was only possible to specify that in the options argument to the setup function before. The dll-excludes option can now be used to filter out dlls like msvcr71.dll or even w9xpopen.exe. * Fix from Gordon Scott: py2exe crashed copying extension modules in packages. Changes in 0.6.2: * Several important bugfixes: - bundled extensions in packages did not work correctly, this made the wxPython single-file sample fail with newer wxPython versions. - occasionally dlls/pyds were loaded twice, with very strange effects. - the source distribution was not complete. - it is now possible to build a debug version of py2exe. Changes in 0.6.1: * py2exe can now bundle binary extensions and dlls into the library-archive or the executable itself. This allows to finally build real single-file executables. The bundled dlls and pyds are loaded at runtime by some special code that emulates the Windows LoadLibrary function - they are never unpacked to the file system. This part of the code is distributed under the MPL 1.1, so this license is now pulled in by py2exe. * By default py2exe now includes the codecs module and the encodings package. * Several other fixes. Homepage: <http://www.py2exe.org> Download from the usual location: <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=15583> Enjoy, Jimmy

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Pywin32 - 2.08
by M�ta-MCI 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

Hi! Mark Hammond must be a little timid. Then, I copy and past his message: ------------------------------------------- Hi all, I have just released build 208 of the pywin32 extensions. Change log and release notes: https://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=403008 Download via: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=78018 Please log any issues via the SourceForge bug collector: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=78018&atid=551954 Regards, Mark. ------------------------------------------- @-salutations -- Michel Claveau

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Zenoss Project (Network/Systems Management)
by Bill Karpovich 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

We are pleased to announce the Zenoss project. Zenoss is Python/Zope-based, network/systems monitoring application that has been in development since 2002. The goal of Zenoss is to "Simplify Systems Management" with a Python, open source alternative to the big commercial management suites (e.g. IBM Tivoli, HP OpenView, etc.). Zenoss also strives to go beyond Nagios and OpenNMS with improved architecture, scalability, ease and breadth. Links: - http://www.zenoss.org (home) - http://www.zenoss.org/download (download) - http://www.zenoss.org/product (product info) - http://dev.zenoss.org/trac (wiki/roadmap/tickets) Register ASAP and get a free "Here it is ... Your Moment of Zen" t-shirt! - http://www.zenoss.org/participate/ We are currently recruiting for the project, including paid positions and bounties. - http://www.zenoss.org/participate/helpwanted.html Zenoss product highlights: - Monitoring across layers (network, servers, apps, environment...) - Monitoring across platforms (windows, linux, unix...) - Monitoring across perspectives (availability, performance, events) - Automated, object-based modeling of the IT environment - Role-based access/management through web portal - Written in Python... Enjoy, Bill Karpovich bk(a)zenoss.org Erik Dahl edahl(a)zenoss.org

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ANN: Urwid 0.9.2 - Console UI Library
by Ian Ward 19 Mar '06

19 Mar '06

Announcing Urwid 0.9.2 ---------------------- Urwid home page: http://excess.org/urwid/ Tarball: http://excess.org/urwid/urwid-0.9.2.tar.gz About this release: =================== This release includes preliminary mouse support, a new input testing example program and a couple bug fixes. If you are interested in mouse support please try the input test example program and let me know if it works properly in your environment. user@host:~/urwid-0.9.2$ ./input_test.py will test the input of the curses_display module, and user@host:~/urwid-0.9.2$ ./input_test.py raw will test the input of the raw_display module. Please post your results and details about your environment to the mailing list. New in this release: ==================== - Preliminary mouse support was added to the raw_display and curses_display modules. A new Screen.set_mouse_tracking() method was added to enable mouse tracking. Mouse events are returned alongside keystrokes from the Screen.get_input() method. The widget interface does not yet include mouse handling. This will be addressed in the next release. - A new convenience function is_mouse_event(..) was added to help in separating mouse events from keystrokes. - Added a new example program input_test.py. This program displays the keyboard and mouse input it receives. It may be run as a CGI script or from the command line. On the command line it defaults to using the curses_display module, use "input_test.py raw" to use the raw_display module instead. - Fixed an Edit.render(..) bug that caused it to render the cursor in a different location than that reported by Edit.get_cursor_coords(..) in some circumstances. - Fixed a bug preventing use of UTF-8 characters with Divider widgets. About Urwid =========== Urwid is a console UI library for Python. It features fluid interface resizing, UTF-8 support, multiple text layouts, simple attribute markup, powerful scrolling list boxes and flexible interface design. Urwid is released under the GNU LGPL.

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Release: PySyck 0.61.1
by Kirill Simonov 18 Mar '06

18 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 0.55.1 to 0.61.1: * setup.py build: check the presence of syck.h and print a helpful message if it is not found. * Release GIL when calling syck. * Change the way !str-tagged scalars are converted. If a scalar contains only ASCII characters, it is converted to a plain string object. If it is a valid UTF-8 sequence, it is converted to a Unicode object. Otherwise leave it as is, and issue a warning. * Windows binaries are built against http://pyyaml.org/download/pysyck/syck-0.61+svn231+patches.tar.gz * The new home of PySyck is http://pyyaml.org/wiki/PySyck. -- xi

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 17)
by Cameron Laird 18 Mar '06

18 Mar '06

QOTW: "Generally, you should always go for whatever is clearest/most easily read (not just in Python, but in all languages)." - Timothy Delaney "You will find as your programming experience increases that the different languages you learn are appropriate for different purposes, and have different advantages and disadvantages. Python excels at expressing algorithms in an unambiguous and easily-readable way." - Steve Holden Is Python a viable extension language for Java? Ravi Teja expertly outlines the possibilities: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/54ad155bc138c8d2 "In order to facilitate small groups working on specific Python-in-Education projects, we have launched an edupython list on google groups." This is a hands-on complement to the more "philosophical" edu-sig. http://groups.google.com/group/edupython mailto:edupython@googlegroups.com One interesting use of Python--at least to software workers--is to manage texts written in *other* languages. Fredrik Lundh and Roman Yakovenko present good approaches for the C++ case: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/913eb2563b815745 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/2b74c8355fc5c25a Pascal and Python? Sure: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/9806ed… Uche Ogbuji details XPath, *XSLT, XQuery, ... capabilities: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/51b0fc… ======================================================================== 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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xlrd 0.5.2 -- extract data from Excel spreadsheets
by John Machin 17 Mar '06

17 Mar '06

I am pleased to announce a new general release (0.5.2) of xlrd, a Python package for extracting data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. CHANGES: * Book and sheet objects can now be pickled and unpickled. Instead of reading a large spreadsheet multiple times, consider pickling it once and loading the saved pickle; can be much faster. * Now works with Python 2.1. Backporting to Python 2.1 was partially funded by Journyx - provider of timesheet and project accounting solutions (http://journyx.com/) * open_workbook() can be given the contents of a file instead of its name. * Now more tolerant of files written in unexpected ways by 3rd party software. * Speed improvements. Minor bugfixes. MAIN FEATURES OF xlrd: * Library for developers; not a tool for end-users. * Platform-independent pure Python – you don't need Windows, Excel, COM, ... * Handles all Excel file versions back to 3.0. * Strong support for Excel dates. AVAILABLE FROM: http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/xlrd http://www.lexicon.net/sjmachin/xlrd ENQUIRIES: E-mail to sjmachin at lexicon.net with [xlrd] in the subject. Cheers, John <P><A HREF="http://www.lexicon.net/sjmachin/xlrd">xlrd 0.5.2</A> - extract data from Excel spreadsheets (17-Mar-06)

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pydocs: Search Python Documentation
by Edward C. Jones 17 Mar '06

17 Mar '06

I have uploaded a revised version of pydocs.tar.gz at "http://members.tripod.com/~edcjones/pycode.html". pydocs is a pair of pure Python programs: "pydocsdata.py" which strips the html from the Python documentation and "pydoc_search.py" which searches the documentation.

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[ANN] Release 0.57 of Task Coach
by Frank Niessink 16 Mar '06

16 Mar '06

Hi all, I'm pleased to announce release 0.57 of Task Coach. New in this release: Bugs fixed: * When adding a new effort to a task, take into account that the user may have changed the task that the effort belongs to in the effort editor dialog (using the dropdown combobox). Because Task Coach didn't do that, the effort would be added twice if the user changed the task of the new effort record. * A file that was saved with an active effort couldn't be loaded again. Task Coach would complain that the file was invalid. * Added different sizes of the Task Coach icon. This prevents scaling up the 16x16 version to 32x32 on Windows or to even 128x128 on the Mac. Feature added: * Task Coach is now also available as disk image (.dmg) for Mac OSX (tested on OSX 10.4). 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 and a disk image is available for Mac OSX, 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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