Mailman 3 July 2006 - Python-announce-list

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jul 12)
by Cameron Laird 12 Jul '06

12 Jul '06

QOTW: "Write code, not usenet posts." - Fredrik Lundh "If an embedded return isn't clear, the method probably needs to be refactored with 'extract method' a few times until it is clear." - John Roth The comp.lang.python collective has become quite expert at answering "Which book should I read?" questions. Note particularly the precision of gene tani, John Salerno, and Vittorio: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/4a9e9a… Programmers who prefer Ruby over Python explain why: http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/d7469d931791… If you don't believe all the other evidence that 'twould be no blessing for one thread to be its brother's keeper, perhaps the testimony of Javans will sway you: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/232ab0131bb3685c Keep in mind, anyway, that threading is overrated (overused, over...): http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/b6d4e2… PataPata is a wild experiment that touches on GUI building, educational "constructivism", and simulations. Paul D. Fernhout comments extensively: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tkinter-discuss/2006-July/000825.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 Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..." Updates appear more-than-weekly: http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html 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://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0042/ 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!". Write to the same address to unsubscribe. -- 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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Subject: RELEASED Python 2.5 (beta 2)
by Anthony Baxter 11 Jul '06

11 Jul '06

On behalf of the Python development team and the Python community, I'm happy to announce the second BETA release of Python 2.5. This is an *beta* release of Python 2.5. As such, it is not suitable for a production environment. It is being released to solicit feedback and hopefully discover bugs, as well as allowing you to determine how changes in 2.5 might impact you. If you find things broken or incorrect, please log a bug on Sourceforge. In particular, note that changes to improve Python's support of 64 bit systems might require authors of C extensions to change their code. More information (as well as source distributions and Windows installers) are available from the 2.5 website: http://www.python.org/2.5/ A Universal Mac OSX Installer will be available shortly - in the meantime, Mac users can build from the source tarballs. Since the first beta, a large number of bug fixes have been made to Python 2.5 - see the release notes (available from the 2.5 webpage) for the full details. There has been one very small new feature added - the sys._current_frames() function was added. This is extremely useful for tracking down deadlocks and related problems - a similar technique is already used in the popular DeadlockDebugger extension for Zope. It is not possible to do this sort of debugging from outside the Python core safely and robustly, which is why we've snuck this in after the feature freeze. As of this release, Python 2.5 is now in *feature freeze*. Unless absolutely necessary, no functionality changes will be made between now and the final release of Python 2.5. The plan is for this to be the final beta release. We should now move to one or more release candidates, leading to a 2.5 final release early August. PEP 356 includes the schedule and will be updated as the schedule evolves. At this point, any testing you can do would be greatly, greatly appreciated. The new features in Python 2.5 are described in Andrew Kuchling's What's New In Python 2.5. It's available from the 2.5 web page. Amongst the language features added include conditional expressions, the with statement, the merge of try/except and try/finally into try/except/finally, enhancements to generators to produce a coroutine kind of functionality, and a brand new AST-based compiler implementation. New modules added include hashlib, ElementTree, sqlite3, wsgiref and ctypes. In addition, a new profiling module "cProfile" was added. Enjoy this new release, Anthony Anthony Baxter anthony(a)python.org Python Release Manager (on behalf of the entire python-dev team)

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Fredericksburg, VA ZPUG July 12: Jim Fulton's buildout package, Python + Fortran, roundtable
by Gary Poster 11 Jul '06

11 Jul '06

Please join us Wed., July 12, 7:30-9:00 PM, for another meeting of the Fredericksburg, VA Zope and Python User Group ("ZPUG"). We will have a presentation, a lightning talk, a roundtable, and some good snacks. - Jim Fulton will present the talk he gave last week at EuroPython on zc.buildout. The zc.buildout project provides support for creating applications, especially Python applications. It provides tools for assembling applications from multiple parts, Python or otherwise. See http://svn.zope.org/zc.buildout/trunk/. - John Kimball will present a lightning talk of Fortran in Python. - We will have a roundtable discussion of Python and Zope topics. Gary ---------------------------------------- General ZPUG information When: second Wednesday of every month, 7:30-9:00. Where: Zope Corporation offices. 513 Prince Edward Street; Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (tinyurl for map is http://tinyurl.com/duoab). Parking: Zope Corporation parking lot; entrance on Prince Edward Street. Topics: As desired (and offered) by participants, within the constraints of having to do with Python or Zope. Mailing list: fredericksburg-zpug(a)zope.org Contact: Gary Poster (gary(a)zope.com)

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Flagpoll 0.1.6 Released
by Daniel E. Shipton 10 Jul '06

10 Jul '06

I am pleased to announce the 0.1.6 release of Flagpoll available at https://realityforge.vrsource.org/view/FlagPoll/WebHome You can download a tarball or RPM from: https://realityforge.vrsource.org/view/FlagPoll/FlagpollDownloads What is Flagpoll? ----------------------------------------------- Flagpoll is a tool for developers to use meta-data files for storing information on what is needed to compile their software. Think of it as the rpm of software development. It enables developers total control over which packages, versions, architectures, etc. that they want to use meta-data from. Flagpoll is a multi-platform tool written in Python. Flagpoll is free software and is licensed under the GPL version 2. Changelog for 0.1.6 ----------------------------------------------- * FPC File maker script * distutils based build * Updated web documentation Features ----------------------------------------------- * Completely eliminates need for *-config scripts * Backwards compatible with pkg-config .pc files * Not tied to any software...completely independent * Smart version lookup o Able to get newest version of a package and all of its dependencies that work together. o Able to specify a release series of a package and gather all of its dependencies that work together. * Designed for parallel software installs(multiple versions and architectures) If your interested in finding more information about Flagpoll check out: https://realityforge.vrsource.org/view/FlagPoll/WebHome -Daniel

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ANN: eGenix mxODBC Zope Database Adapter 1.0.10
by eGenix Team: M.-A. Lemburg 10 Jul '06

10 Jul '06

________________________________________________________________________ ANNOUNCEMENT EGENIX.COM mxODBC Zope Database Adapter Version 1.0.10 Usable with Zope and the Plone CMS. Available for Zope 2.3 through 2.10 on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and FreeBSD ________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION The eGenix mxODBC Zope Database Adapter allows you to easily connect your Zope or Plone installation to just about any database backend on the market today, giving you the reliability of the commercially supported eGenix product mxODBC and the flexibility of the ODBC standard as middle-tier architecture. The mxODBC Zope Database Adapter is highly portable, just like Zope itself and provides a high performance interface to all your ODBC data sources, using a single well-supported interface on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and FreeBSD. This makes it ideal for deployment in ZEO Clusters and Zope hosting environments where stability and high performance are a top priority, establishing an excellent basis and scalable solution for your Plone CMS. ________________________________________________________________________ NEWS We are pleased to announce a new version of our mxODBC Zope DA product. The Zope DA now fully supports 64-bit ODBC. A problem with 64-bit integers has been resolved in this release. Also new in this release is support for the upcoming Zope 2.10. We have successfully tested the mxODBC Zope DA with the latest beta of the upcoming Zope version. ________________________________________________________________________ UPGRADING If you have already bought mxODBC Zope DA 1.0.x licenses, you can use these license for the 1.0.10 version as well. There is no need to buy new licenses. The same is true for evaluation license users. ________________________________________________________________________ MORE INFORMATION For more information on the mxODBC Zope Database Adapter, licensing and download instructions, please visit our web-site: http://zope.egenix.com/ You can buy mxODBC Zope DA licenses online from the eGenix.com shop at: http://shop.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ Thank you, -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Services directly from the Source (#1, Jul 10 2006) >>> Python/Zope Consulting and Support ... http://www.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC.Zope.Database.Adapter ... http://zope.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ... http://python.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ ::: Try mxODBC.Zope.DA for Windows,Linux,Solaris,FreeBSD for free ! ::::

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ANN: webstring 0.4 and lwebstring 0.4 released
by L. C. Rees 10 Jul '06

10 Jul '06

webstring is an XML template engine that uses Python as its template language. It exposes the XML you need and hides the XML you don't. XML manipulation is done with Python so you don't have to learn a separate template language. webstring templates are plain XML or HTML so designers don't need to become programmers. webstring can take broken HTML and output it as HTML 4.01 or XHTML along with other XML formats. It can also act as WSGI middleware for templating web output on the fly. webstring uses cElementTree or elementtree as its XML processing backend. lwebstring uses lxml, a Python binding for the libxml2 and libxsl libraries. Highlights of release 0.4 of webstring and lwebstring include: - Output changes: fields and groups output a marked element, its children, and new siblings instead of the marked element's parent element when rendered as a string. - Template concatenation can be chained i.e. template1 + template2 + template3 - includes middleware for using the Template and HTMLTemplate classes with WSGI applications. Highlights of release 0.4 of lwebstring include: - can apply XSLT stylesheets to a Template using the "transform" method

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Leipzig Python User Group - Meeting, July 11, 2006, 8:00pm
by Mike Müller 09 Jul '06

09 Jul '06

========================= Leipzig Python User Group ========================= Next Meeting Tuesday, July 11, 2006 ----------------------------------- We will meet on July 11 at 8:00 pm at the training center of Python Academy in Leipzig, Germany (http://www.python-academy.com/center/find.html). Mike Müller will give his EuroPython-Presentation "Python Academy Teaching Python in Germany". Food and soft drinks are provided. Please send a short confirmation mail to info(a)python-academy.de, so we can prepare appropriately. Everybody who uses Python, plans to do so or is interested in learning more about the language is encouraged to participate. While the meeting language will be mainly German, English speakers are very welcome. We will provide English interpretation if needed. Current information about the meetings can always be found at http://www.python-academy.com/user-group/index.html ========================= Leipzig Python User Group ========================= Stammtisch am 11.07.2006 ------------------------- Wir treffen uns am 11.07.2006 um 20:00 Uhr wieder im im Schulungszentrum der Python Academy in Leipzig (http://www.python-academy.de/Schulungszentrum/anfahrt.html). Mike Müller wird seinen EuroPython-Vortrag "Python Academy - Teaching Python in Germany" halten. Für das leibliche Wohl wird gesorgt. Wir bitten um kurze Anmeldung per e-mail an: info(a)python-academy.de An den Treffen der Python Anwendergruppe kann jeder teilnehmen, der Interesse an Python hat, die Sprache bereits nutzt oder nutzen möchte. Die Arbeitssprachen des Treffens ist Deutsch. Englisch sprechende Python-Enthusiasten sind trotzdem herzlich eingeladen. Wir übersetzen gern. Aktuelle Informationen zu den Treffen sind immer unter http://www.python-academy.de/User-Group/index.html zu finden.

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ANN: MoinMoin 1.5.4 (advanced wiki engine) released
by Alexander Schremmer 08 Jul '06

08 Jul '06

_ _ /\/\ ___ (_)_ __ /\/\ ___ (_)_ __ / \ / _ \| | '_ \ / \ / _ \| | '_ \ __ / /\/\ \ (_) | | | | / /\/\ \ (_) | | | | | /| |_ \/ \/\___/|_|_| |_\/ \/\___/|_|_| |_| |.__) ============================================== MoinMoin 1.5.4 advanced wiki engine released ============================================== MoinMoin is an easy to use, full-featured and extensible wiki software package written in Python. It can fulfill a wide range of roles, such as a personal notes organizer deployed on a laptop or home web server, a company knowledge base deployed on an intranet, or an Internet server open to individuals sharing the same interests, goals or projects. A wiki is a collaborative hypertext environment with an emphasis on easy manipulation of information. MoinMoin 1.5.4 is a bug fix release and a recommended update. The 1.5 branch brings you several new features such as the GUI editor, which allows the users to edit pages in a WYSIWYG environment, and many bug fixes. The download page: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinDownload New features in 1.5.4 ===================== * Fixes in the GUI editor. * Dashes in the username were allowed. * EmbedObject macro for embedding of all kinds of multimedia formats into the page. * Speedup of the Twisted adapter. Major bug fixes in 1.5.4 ======================== * Many GUI editor related bug fixes. * Increased docutils compatiblity. Major new features in 1.5 ========================= * The WYSIWYG editor for wiki pages allows you to edit pages without touching the markup. Furthermore, the wiki page is not stored as HTML after editing but kept as wiki markup in order to simplify the editing process for users that cannot or do not want to use the new editor. * AutoAdmin security policy allows users to gain admin permissions on particular pages. * The new authentication system allows to add short methods that check the credentials of the user. This allowed us to add eGroupware single sign on support. * Separation of homepages into a separate wiki (in a farm) and having a single user database is supported. * A DeSpam action to allow mass-reverting of spam attacks. * PackageInstaller support for simplified installation of plugins, themes and page bundles. This enables you to decide in which languages help pages should be installed. Note that Python 2.3.0 or newer is required. For a more detailed list of changes, see the CHANGES file in the distribution or http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinRelease1.5/CHANGES MoinMoin History ================ MoinMoin has been around since year 2000. The codebase was initally started by Jürgen Hermann; it is currently being developed by a growing team. Being originally based on PikiPiki, it has evolved heavily since then (PikiPiki and MoinMoin 0.1 consisted of just one file!). Many large enterprises have been using MoinMoin as a key tool of their intranet, some even use it for their public web page. A large number of Open Source projects use MoinMoin for communication and documentation. Of course there are also many private installations. More Information ================ * Project site: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/ * Feature list: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinFeatures * Download: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinDownload * DesktopEdition: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/DesktopEdition * This software is available under the GNU General Public License v2. * Changes: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinRelease1.5/CHANGES * Known bugs: * http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/KnownIssues * http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinBugs sent by Alexander Schremmer for the MoinMoin team

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[Jython-users] Pydev and Pydev Extensions 1.0.6 release
by Fabio Zadrozny 08 Jul '06

08 Jul '06

Hi All, Pydev and Pydev Extensions 1.0.6 have been released Check http://www.fabioz.com/pydev for details on Pydev Extensions and http://pydev.sf.net for details on Pydev Release Highlights in Pydev Extensions: ----------------------------------------------------------------- - New Feature: Show hierarchy (F4) -- Still in a beta state (currently only looks for subclasses on the same project). - Analysis happens in a Thread, so, you should now always have the latest parse without any halts (this happened only when the option was set to analyze only on save). - Class variable marked as error when self ommitted - when an undefined import is found within a try..except ImportError, it will not be reported. - Allow changing the keybinding for activating the Interactive Console (Ctrl+Enter) - Added a simple text-search that looks for in all .py and .pyw files (will be improved in the future to make a real python-like search). - The keywords that match the 'simple' keywords completion do not show up. Release Highlights in Pydev: ---------------------------------------------- - Assign variables to attributes (Ctrl+2+a): Contributed by Joel Hedlund (this is the first contribution using the new jython scripting engine). - 3 minor 'quirks' were fixed in the indentation engine - The debugger had some changes (so, if you had halts with it, please try it again). - Allow changing the keybinding for activating the Find next problem (Ctrl+.) - The debugger step-return had its behaviour changed. - Additional scripts location added to pythonpath in the jython scripting engine - Transversal of nested references improved - Fixed problems with compiled modules when they had 'nested' module structures (e.g.: wx.glcanvas) What is PyDev? --------------------------- PyDev is a plugin that enables users to use Eclipse for Python and Jython development -- making Eclipse a first class Python IDE -- It comes with many goodies such as code completion, syntax highlighting, syntax analysis, refactor, debug and many others. Cheers, -- Fabio Zadrozny ------------------------------------------------------ Software Developer ESSS - Engineering Simulation and Scientific Software http://www.esss.com.br Pydev Extensions http://www.fabioz.com/pydev Pydev - Python Development Enviroment for Eclipse http://pydev.sf.net http://pydev.blogspot.com

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[ANNOUNCE] Thirty-third release of PythonCAD now available
by Art Haas 07 Jul '06

07 Jul '06

Hi. I'm pleased to announce the thirty-third development release of PythonCAD, a CAD package for open-source software users. As the name implies, PythonCAD is written entirely in Python. The goal of this project is to create a fully scriptable drafting program that will match and eventually exceed features found in commercial CAD software. PythonCAD is released under the GNU Public License (GPL). PythonCAD requires Python 2.2 or newer. The interface is GTK 2.0 based, and uses the PyGTK module for interfacing to GTK. The design of PythonCAD is built around the idea of separating the interface from the back end as much as possible. By doing this, it is hoped that both GNOME and KDE interfaces can be added to PythonCAD through usage of the appropriate Python module. Addition of other PythonCAD interfaces will depend on the availability of a Python module for that particular interface and developer interest and action. The thirty-third release contains several major updates to the program. Drawing operations have been greatly sped up when entities are added to a drawing, modified, or deleted from a drawing. Users on older hardware or machines with slower video systems will notice this change immediately. A second large change in this release is the completion of separating the interface code from the core code by using the internal messaging system in place of object inheritance. The third big change in this release is the formatting of the interface text strings for internationalization, and a Spanish translation is now available for users to install. It is hoped that more translations appear in future releases. Additionally, a large number of smaller improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes are also present in this release. A mailing list for the development and use of PythonCAD is available. Visit the following page for information about subscribing and viewing the mailing list archive: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythoncad Visit the PythonCAD web site for more information about what PythonCAD does and aims to be: http://www.pythoncad.org/ Come and join me in developing PythonCAD into a world class drafting program! Art Haas -- Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. -Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822

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