Python-announce-list December 2007

python-announce-list@python.org

44 participants
58 discussions

[ANN] Release 0.68.0 of Task Coach
by Frank Niessink 26 Dec '07

26 Dec '07

Hi, I'm happy to announce release 0.68.0 of Task Coach. This release makes it possible to open a task from its reminder dialog, adds a command line option to facilitate the PortableApps.com Task Coach distribution, makes starting and stopping effort tracking quicker and fixes a number of bugs. Bugs fixed: * Start and stop tracking effort is faster for tasks that have a large number of associated effort records. * Task Coach now gives an error message if the file that it tries to open doesn't exist. * When selecting all text in a text control with '<cmd>a', indeed select all text and not all tasks (Max OSX only). * Attempt to prevent crashes on Fedora 8 that sometimes happen when adding top level tasks. Features added: * It is possible to open a task from its reminder dialog. * Task Coach has a --ini command line option that can be used to specify where the ini file is located. 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://www.taskcoach.org In addition to the source distribution, packaged distributions are available for Windows XP/Vista, Mac OSX, and Linux (Debian and RPM format). 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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ANN: PyCscope release 0.3
by dwhall 25 Dec '07

25 Dec '07

Hello, I would like to announce release 0.3 of PyCscope, a python script to generate a cscope index from a Python source tree. PyCscope uses Python's own parser and AST to generate the index, so it is a bit more accurate than plain cscope. PyCscope may be downloaded from the Cheeseshop http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pycscope/0.3 !!Dean

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[ANNOUNCE] GNUmed 0.2.8.0 released
by Sebastian Hilbert 25 Dec '07

25 Dec '07

I am pleased to announce GNUmed 0.2.8.0. GNUmed is a comprehensive scalable software solution for electronic medical practices with an emphasis on privacy protection, secure patient centric record sharing, decision support, and ease of use. It is intended to become a sophisticated decision support system that will elevate the quality of medical care that can be delivered. Release focus: Major feature enhancements Changes: A report generator to visualize query results with gnuplot has been added. Exception handling has been improved. The Snellen Chart has been reactivated. KVK handling has officially been included. More hooks and an improved example hook script were added. Demographics handling has been extended to now really support multiple names, addresses, comm channels, and external IDs. Furthermore, there are lots of GUI-accessible configuration options that were always there in the backend but didn't have a frontend to them. File format handling in document management has seen improvements. Information available at http://wiki.gnumed.de packages are available for Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE, Windows and Mac packages will follow soon. -- Sebastian Hilbert Leipzig / Germany [www.gnumed.de] -> PGP welcome, HTML ->/dev/null

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ANN: Axon.STM 1.0.1 (release) Minimalistic Software Transactional Memory (with examples)
by Michael Sparks 24 Dec '07

24 Dec '07

Hi, I've received some great feedback since the initial beta release of the minimalistic STM code I discussed and released 2 weeks ago. I've incorporated the feedback, and created a couple of examples based on the canonical dining philosophers example. (One based on normal python threads, one based on Kamaelia) It turns out that there was a potential race hazard during "using" and "usevar" which I'd missed - many thanks to Richard Taylor for pointing out this issue. Changelog ========= 1.0.1 * Improved locking. (fixed race hazards during copying for reading - the last release was noted as probably OK for CPython, but maybe not for Jython or IronPython. This version is more robust) * Added Dining Philosophers examples (threading & Axon threading) Getting it ========== You can download this release version here: http://thwackety.com/Axon.STM-1.0.1.tar.gz Installing it ============= tar zxf Axon.STM-1.0.1.tar.gz cd Axon.STM-1.0.1/ sudo python setup.py install What IS it? =========== Software Transactional Memory (STM) is a technique for allowing multiple threads to share data in such a way that they know when something has gone wrong. It's been used in databases (just called transactions there really) for some time and is also very similar to version control. Indeed, you can think of STM as being like variable level version control. Note: Because this is NOT intended to be persistent, this is not an ACID store because it doesn't support the D - durability across a crash. (after all, we don't save the state to disk) (The other aspects atomicity, consistency & isolation are supported though) I've written this to allow a part of Kamaelia to share & manage a dictionary of atomic values between threads simply, and as a result this code is also going into mainline Kamaelia. (Specifically into Axon Kamaelia's core) However STM is something that should hopefully be of use to others doing concurrent things whether or not they're using kamaelia, hence this stand alone release. This stand alone release should not be used alongside mainline Axon yet. (Well you can, as long as you reinstall your Axon over the top, but that's icky :-) Why is it useful? ================= [ please skip this (or correct me :) if you understand concurrency already :-) ] Why do you need it? Well, in normal code, Global variables are generally shunned because it can make your code a pain to work with and a pain to be certain if it works properly. Even with linear code, you can have 2 bits of code manipulating a structure in surprising ways - but the results are repeatable. Not-properly-managed-shared-data is to threaded systems as not-properly-managed-globals are to normal code. (This code is one way of helping manage shared data) Well, with code where you have multiple threads active, having shared data is like an even nastier version of globals. Why? Well, when you have 2 (or more) running in parallel, the results of breakage can become hard to repeat as two pieces of code "race" to update values. With STM you make it explicit what the values are you want to update, and only once you're happy with the updates do you publish them back to the shared storage. The neat thing is, if someone else changed things since you last looked, you get told (your commit fails), and you have to redo the work. This may sound like extra work (you have to be prepared to redo the work), but it's nicer than your code breaking :-) The way you get that message is the .commit raises a ConcurrentUpdate exception. Also, it's designed to work happily in code that requires non-blocking usage - which means you may also get a "BusyRetry" exception under load. If you do, you should as the exception suggests retry the action that you just tried. (With or without restarting the transaction) Apologies if that sounds too noddy :) Docs for it =========== http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/STM Using It ======== # Initialising a Store from Axon.STM import Store S = Store() # Single values greeting = S.usevar("hello") print repr(greeting.value) greeting.set("Hello World") greeting.commit() S.dump() # Groups of values D = S.using("account_one", "account_two", "myaccount") D["account_one"].set(50) D["account_two"].set(100) D.commit() S.dump() D = S.using("account_one", "account_two", "myaccount") D["myaccount"].set(D["account_one"].value+D["account_two"].value) D["account_one"].set(0) D["account_two"].set(0) D.commit() S.dump() Dining Philosophers =================== Pure python version: https://kamaelia.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/kamaelia/branches/private_MPS_… Kamaelia version: import time import Axon from Axon.STM import Store import random def all(aList, value): for i in aList: if value != i: return False return True class Philosopher(Axon.ThreadedComponent.threadedcomponent): forks = ["fork.1", "fork.2"] # default for testing :-) def main(self): # start here :-) while 1: X = self.getforks() time.sleep(0.2) self.releaseforks(X) time.sleep(0.3+random.random()) def getforks(self): gotforks = False while not gotforks: try: X = self.store.using(*self.forks) if all([ X[fork].value for fork in self.forks], None): for fork in self.forks: X[fork].value = self.name X.commit() gotforks = True else: time.sleep(random.random()) except Axon.STM.ConcurrentUpdate: time.sleep(random.random()) print "Got forks!", self.name, self.forks return X def releaseforks(self,X): print "releasing forks", self.name for fork in self.forks: X[fork].value = None X.commit() S = Store() N = 5 for i in range(1,N): Philosopher(store=S,forks=["fork.%d" % i ,"fork.%d" % (i+1)]).activate() Philosopher(store=S,forks=["fork.%d" % N ,"fork.%d" % 1]).run() Feedback ======== Feedback is very welcome, preferably via email to the Kamaelia List * kamaelia-list(a)lists.sourceforge.net Feedback especially regarding bugs and logical errors is particularly welcome. (hopefully there aren't any - but it's always hard to spot your own) Thanks ====== Many thanks to Fuzzyman, Duncan Booth, John J Lee & Sylvain Hellegouarch for feedback whilst I was prototyping this. Further thanks go to Richard Taylor for detailed feedback and discussion regarding locking and for pointing me at MASCOT which made me think of doing the dining philosophers this way :-) Future ====== This will be merged onto the mainline of Kamaelia with some auxillary functions , as another feather aimed at making concurrency easy to work with :-) Best Regards, Michael. -- Michael Sparks, Kamaelia Project http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/Developers/ http://yeoldeclue.com/blog

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[ANN] Aspen 0.8: Introducing Simplates
by Chad Whitacre 23 Dec '07

23 Dec '07

Greetings, program! I'm happy to announce version 0.8 of Aspen, a Python webserver. This version introduces "simplates," which bring Python and web templating as close as possible without actually mixing them. You'll find a 3-minute intro video plus docs and downloads here: http://www.zetadev.com/software/aspen/ Thanks! chad

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ExcelMailer 0.2
by mario ruggier 23 Dec '07

23 Dec '07

It is a pleasure to announce this first public release of ExcelMailer. ExcelMailer is a small os-independent command line business tool for emailing personalized messages with attachments. Data and options are specified via an Excel file and the message content via plain text or HTML file templates. For each data row in the Excel file ExcelMailer prepares and sends, when explicitly requested, a personalized MIME email message and its attachments if any. Highlights: - The text message may be in plain text or in HTML or in both i.e. in HTML with an alternative plain text version. - May define any number of data columns (only to is required) that are then all accessible in the message templates with ${ column heading }. - Rich and flexible set of options, that may be conveniently saved in the Excel file itself as well as be explicitly overridden on the command line. - Automatic recognition of input text encodings. Output text is always encoded in UTF-8. - Extensive data validation before sending any messages. No emails are sent unless explicitly requested and all data checks pass. No error goes silent. - Data rows can be tagged, for test runs or selective re-runs. - All actions, such as sending of an email, are logged to a file named ${ excel file }.log, placed alongside the Excel file. Special thanks to John Machin, for the xlrd package, to Bryan Niederberger, for his recipe making using xlrd even easier, and to Skip Montanaro, for some sample code to facilitate handling of input encodings. ExcelMailer is GPL3-licensed, and is available from: http://gizmojo.org/software/excelmailer/ Any and all comments, problem reports, suggestions welcome! Thanks and all the best, mario

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setuptools_bzr 1.0
by Barry Warsaw 20 Dec '07

20 Dec '07

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I'm happy to announce the setuptools_bzr 1.0 plugin (for Python's setuptools). This allows setuptools to find your Python package files kept under the Bazaar revision control system. This should be compatible with Bazaar 1.0. Please note: this package used to be called setuptoolsbzr, but it was renamed to be more compatible with an emerging standard for other revision control system plugins for setuptools. The project home page was not renamed and the old PyPI package name was deleted. The plugin is available on the Python Package Index (a.k.a. Cheeseshop), here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi?name=setuptools_bzr&version=1.0&:action=display To use the plugin, just modify your setup() function in setup.py like so: setup(... setup_requires = [ 'setuptools_bzr', ], ...) The project home page is on Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/setuptoolsbzr and more information about the Bazaar distributed revision control system can be found here: http://bazaar-vcs.org Enjoy, - -Barry -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin) iQCVAwUBR2rsXHEjvBPtnXfVAQJP9wQAsh+t/XDwg1s85b11BmJifI3mIMnnGTDx iY+wyAqMllI3S2nQWl8ZPwe4R7s/TuK7klLIkyHVmv86ZE4x3GO8UD183XeXOADj nGcBe8L64SAT+EdVCoju1RrnCiV14xSTSF8JL5WdINakUy8yKI5ZiCfpwI3JK05p TXtLW2aLhSU= =MUct -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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itools 0.20.0 released
by "J. David Ibáñez" 20 Dec '07

20 Dec '07

itools is a Python library, it groups a number of packages into a single meta-package for easier development and deployment: itools.catalog itools.i18n itools.uri itools.csv itools.ical itools.vfs itools.datatypes itools.odf itools.web itools.gettext itools.pdf itools.workflow itools.git itools.rest itools.xliff itools.handlers itools.rss itools.xml itools.html itools.stl itools.http itools.tmx The most visible change in this major release is that "itools.cms" has been moved out of itools and is now distributed as a separate package, named "ikaaro". Also in the code reorganization category: "itools.xhtml" has been merged into "itools.html". And the "itools.schemas" package has been removed, since we do the same thing in a different way. The most important change is the architecture overhaul of the "handlers" package. From a functional point of view, the big news is the database layer that has been included, which provides atomic transactions for the file system. But the changes go well beyond that, read the documentation to learn how things work now. Other packages that have seen more or less important API improvements or changes include "itools.catalog", "itools.csv", "itools.datatypes", "itools.rss", "itools.vfs" and "itools.web". There have been also many naming normalizations. Check the upgrade notes for further details. The numbering scheme has changed, we have jumped from the 0.16 to the 0.20 version, and future major releases will be numbered 0.30, 0.40, 0.50, etc. (This change is to define an implicit relationship with the numbering scheme of "ikaaro".) Resources --------- Download http://download.ikaaro.org/itools/itools-0.20.0.tar.gz http://download.ikaaro.org/itools/itools-0.20.0.win32-py2.5.exe http://download.ikaaro.org/itools/itools-0.20.0.win32-py2.4.exe Home http://www.ikaaro.org/itools Mailing list http://mail.ikaaro.org/mailman/listinfo/itools Bug Tracker http://bugs.ikaaro.org/ -- J. David Ibáñez Itaapy <http://www.itaapy.com> Tel +33 (0)1 42 23 67 45 9 rue Darwin, 75018 Paris Fax +33 (0)1 53 28 27 88

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Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Dec 18)
by Gabriel Genellina 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

QOTW: "XML. Almost as good as plain text for grepping." - Joe Mason "Where there's IP, there's a way." - Kyler Laird, on network programming Linked lists, deques, and iteration over a mutating container: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/1017de… Containers should compare themselves using only their contained objects's available comparison operators: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/65bb28… The distinction between methods and callable attributes: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/7943ab… Discussing alternative loop constructs: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/f45f2b… Analyzing slow code for loading data, and trying to improve it, with general tips on optmization: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/4e5c8d… Unexpected floating point rounding errors: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/37e780… Improving the Python core (JIT compilation and others), and how the development process works (a long thread started last week) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/7a4d66… Ways to do inter-process communication: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/85f7a8… The csv module: examples, improvements, and complaints about lack of documentation: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/e3a433… Is Python really a "scripting language"? (advocacy) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/9e9140… Looping two iterables at once: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/e48437… zip() as its own inverse: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/1c055c… Python compared to Java http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/c9fa68… ======================================================================== 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. Just beginning with Python? This page is a great place to start: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers The Python Papers aims to publish "the efforts of Python enthusiats": http://pythonpapers.org/ The Python Magazine is a technical monthly devoted to Python: http://pythonmagazine.com Readers have recommended the "Planet" sites: http://planetpython.org http://planet.python.org 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 continues the marvelous tradition early borne by Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson, Brett Cannon, Tony Meyer, and Tim Lesher 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 Many Python conferences around the world are in preparation. Watch this space for links to them. 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-- Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and sponsor the "Python-URL!" project. Watch this space for upcoming news about posting archives.

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[CfP] Workshop on Self-sustaining Systems (S3) 2008
by "Martin v. Löwis" 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

*** Workshop on Self-sustaining Systems (S3) 2008 *** May 15-16, 2008 Potsdam, Germany http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/s3/ -- Call for papers: The Workshop on Self-sustaining Systems (S3) is a forum for discussion of topics relating to computer systems and languages that are able to bootstrap, implement, modify, and maintain themselves. One property of these systems is that their implementation is based on small but powerful abstractions; examples include (amongst others) Squeak/Smalltalk, COLA, Klein/Self, PyPy/Python, Rubinius/Ruby, and Lisp. Such systems are the engines of their own replacement, giving researchers and developers great power to experiment with, and explore future directions from within, their own small language kernels. S3 will be take place May 15-16, 2008 at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Potsdam, Germany. It is an exciting opportunity for researchers and practitioners interested in self-sustaining systems to meet and share their knowledge, experience, and ideas for future research and development. -- Invited talk: Ian Piumarta: Late-bound Object Lambda Architectures (Viewpoints Research Institute, USA) -- Submissions and proceedings: S3 invites submissions of high-quality papers reporting original research, or describing innovative contributions to, or experience with, self-sustaining systems, their implementation, and their application. Papers that depart significantly from established ideas and practices are particularly welcome. Submissions must not have been published previously and must not be under review for any another refereed event or publication. The program committee will evaluate each contributed paper based on its relevance, significance, clarity, and originality. Revised papers will be published as post-proceedings in the Springer LNCS series. Papers should be submitted electronically via EasyChair at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=s3 in PDF format. Submissions must be written in English (the official language of the workshop) and must not exceed 20 pages. They should use the LNCS format, templates for which are available at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html. -- Venue: Hasso-Plattner-Institut (Potsdam, Germany) -- Important dates: Submission of papers: February 15, 2008 Author notification: April 11, 2008 Revised papers due: April 25, 2008 S3 workshop: May 15-16, 2008 Final papers for LNCS post-proceedings due: June 6, 2008 -- Chairs: * Robert Hirschfeld (Hasso-Plattner-Institut Potsdam, Germany) * Kim Rose (Viewpoints Research Institute, USA) -- Program committee: * Johan Brichau, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium * Pascal Costanza, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium * Wolfgang De Meuter, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium * Stephane Ducasse, INRIA Lille, France * Michael Haupt, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Germany * Robert Hirschfeld, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Germany * Dan Ingalls, Sun Microsystems Laboratories, USA * Martin von Lšwis, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Germany * Hidehiko Masuhara, University of Tokyo, Japan * Ian Piumarta, Viewpoints Research Institute, USA * David Ungar, IBM, USA -- Registration fees: Early (until April 18, 2008) * Regular participants: EUR 160 * Students: EUR 80 Late (after April 18, 2008) * Regular participants: EUR 170 * Students: EUR 90

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Python-announce-list December 2007