Mailman 3 March 2008 - Python-announce-list

Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 3)
by Gabriel Genellina March 22, 2008

March 22, 2008

QOTW: "No, Google, I didn't want the Botswana daily news with its article on the Botswana National Front and another on a fellow arrested for having contraband python skins." - Martin Rineh, during his relentless search for Python's BNF http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/88434b135d526ff3 "I smell Java burning." - Dennis Lee Bieber http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/7f1687fec60df8c9 Adding a Rational type, and the int/int behavior: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/50e0e3… Basic network programming: how does s.accept() work? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/d8c416… Generating all the ways n indistinguishable items can be put into k distinguishable boxes: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/59a4ca… Comparing Python syntax to other languages: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/7227b7… A misfeature of Unicode raw strings syntax: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/5910f8… A proposal for adding priority scheduling to the subprocess module: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/a3363f… ======================================================================== 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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Public release of Sphinx, Python's documentation toolchain
by Georg Brandl March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

I'm delighted to announce that the Sphinx library, used to build the new Python documentation (for 2.6 and 3.0) [1], is now released for general use. What is it? =========== Sphinx is a tool that makes it easy to create intelligent and beautiful documentation for Python projects (or other documents consisting of multiple reStructuredText source files). Its website is at <http://sphinx.pocoo.org/>. What does it do? ================ Sphinx is not an API documentation generator like Epydoc. Instead, its focus is on hand-written documentation, such as the Python one. * Main output formats: HTML (including HTML Help) and LaTeX * Extensive cross-references: semantic markup and automatic links for functions, classes, glossary terms and similar pieces of information * Hierarchical structure: easy definition of a document tree, with automatic links to siblings, parents and children * Automatic indices: general index as well as a module index * Code handling: automatic highlighting using the Pygments highlighter * Goodies such as changes overview, and external link checking What else? ========== Various extensions are available and in development: * autodoc: pulls in documentation from docstrings that are written in reST, to avoid having to maintain multiple documentation locations * doctest: automatically tests snippets in the documentation in doctest fashion * coverage: documentation coverage checker Cheers, Georg [1] http://docs.python.org/dev

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Version 2.0 of mod_wsgi is now available.
by Graham Dumpleton March 21, 2008

March 21, 2008

Version 2.0 of mod_wsgi is now available. The software and documentation are both available from: http://www.modwsgi.org The mod_wsgi package consists of an Apache web server module designed and implemented specifically for hosting Python based web applications that support the WSGI interface specification. Examples of major Python web frameworks and applications which are known to work in conjunction with mod_wsgi include CherryPy, Django, MoinMoin, Pylons, Trac, TurboGears and Zope. Version 2.0 of mod_wsgi contains numerous new features including simplified application reloading, Apache authentication provider hooks, better Python virtual environment support and support for WSGI optional file wrapper extension. Base level performance of daemon mode has also been boosted by up to 40% for a simple hello world application, further reducing the network level overhead of using this mode. A description of all changes in this version can be found in the change notes at: http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ChangesInVersion0200 If you have any questions about mod_wsgi or wish to provide feedback, use the Google group for mod_wsgi found at: http://groups.google.com/group/modwsgi Enjoy Graham Dumpleton

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Bazaar 1.3 released
by Martin Pool March 20, 2008

March 20, 2008

I'm happy to announce the release of version 1.3 of the Bazaar version control system. http://bazaar-vcs.org/Download Since 1.2, we've improved the speed of several important operations, including log, annotate, and other operations on revision history. Several bugs have been fixed and new options and features have been added, including an option to hardlink files between working trees. A full history of changes is listed below. In this release, Bazaar becomes part of the GNU system. This decision was taken after consultation with some of the core Bazaar developers, Canonical management, and Richard Stallman, leader of the GNU project. Canonical is delighted by the GNU project's decision and remains as engaged as ever in the Bazaar project. -- Martin on behalf of the Bazaar developers bzr 1.3 2008-03-20 ------------------ TESTING: * Avoid spurious failure of ``TestVersion.test_version`` matching directory names. (#202778, Martin Pool) bzr 1.3rc1 2008-03-16 --------------------- NOTES WHEN UPGRADING: * The backup directory created by ``upgrade`` is now called ``backup.bzr``, not ``.bzr.backup``. (Martin Albisetti) CHANGES: * A new repository format 'development' has been added. This format will represent the latest 'in-progress' format that the bzr developers are interested in getting early-adopter testing and feedback on. ``doc/developers/development-repo.txt`` has detailed information. (Robert Collins) * BZR_LOG environment variable controls location of .bzr.log trace file. User can suppress writing messages to .bzr.log by using '/dev/null' filename (on Linux) or 'NUL' (on Windows). If BZR_LOG variable is not defined but BZR_HOME is defined then default location for .bzr.log trace file is ``$BZR_HOME/.bzr.log``. (Alexander Belchenko) * ``launchpad`` builtin plugin now shipped as separate part in standalone bzr.exe, installed to ``C:\Program Files\Bazaar\plugins`` directory, and standalone installer allows user to skip installation of this plugin. (Alexander Belchenko) * Restore auto-detection of plink.exe on Windows. (Dmitry Vasiliev) * Version number is now shown as "1.2" or "1.2pr2", without zeroed or missing final fields. (Martin Pool) FEATURES: * ``branch`` and ``checkout`` can hard-link working tree files, which is faster and saves space. (Aaron Bentley) * ``bzr send`` will now also look at the ``child_submit_to`` setting in the submit branch to determine the email address to send to. (Jelmer Vernooij) IMPROVEMENTS: * BzrBranch._lefthand_history is faster on pack repos. (Aaron Bentley) * Branch6.generate_revision_history is faster. (Aaron Bentley) * Directory services can now be registered, allowing special URLs to be dereferenced into real URLs. This is a generalization and cleanup of the lp: transport lookup. (Aaron Bentley) * Merge directives that are automatically attached to emails have nicer filenames, based on branch-nick + revno. (Aaron Bentley) * ``push`` has a ``--revision`` option, to specify what revision to push up to. (Daniel Watkins) * Significantly reducing execution time and network traffic for trivial case of running ``bzr missing`` command for two identical branches. (Alexander Belchenko) * Speed up operations that look at the revision graph (such as 'bzr log'). ``KnitPackRepositor.get_revision_graph`` uses ``Graph.iter_ancestry`` to extract the revision history. This allows filtering ghosts while stepping instead of needing to peek ahead. (John Arbash Meinel) * The ``hooks`` command lists installed hooks, to assist in debugging. (Daniel Watkins) * Updates to how ``annotate`` work. Should see a measurable improvement in performance and memory consumption for file with a lot of merges. Also, correctly handle when a line is introduced by both parents (it should be attributed to the first merge which notices this, and not to all subsequent merges.) (John Arbash Meinel) BUGFIXES: * Autopacking no longer holds the full set of inventory lines in memory while copying. For large repositories, this can amount to hundreds of MB of ram consumption. (Ian Clatworthy, John Arbash Meinel) * Cherrypicking when using ``--format=merge3`` now explictly excludes BASE lines. (John Arbash Meinel, #151731) * Disable plink's interactive prompt for password. (#107593, Dmitry Vasiliev) * Encode command line arguments from unicode to user_encoding before invoking external mail client in `bzr send` command. (#139318, Alexander Belchenko) * Fixed problem connecting to ``bzr+https://`` servers. (#198793, John Ferlito) * Improved error reporting in the Launchpad plugin. (Daniel Watkins, #196618) * Include quick-start-summary.svg file to python-based installer(s) for Windows. (#192924, Alexander Belchenko) * lca merge now respects specified files. (Aaron Bentley) * Make version-info --custom imply --all. (#195560, James Westby) * ``merge --preview`` now works for merges that add or modify symlinks (James Henstridge) * Redirecting the output from ``bzr merge`` (when the remembered location is used) now works. (John Arbash Meinel) * setup.py script explicitly checks for Python version. (Jari Aalto, Alexander Belchenko, #200569) * UnknownFormatErrors no longer refer to branches regardless of kind of unknown format. (Daniel Watkins, #173980) * Upgrade bundled ConfigObj to version 4.5.2, which properly quotes # signs, among other small improvements. (Matt Nordhoff, #86838) * Use correct indices when emitting LCA conflicts. This fixes IndexError errors. (Aaron Bentley, #196780) DOCUMENTATION: * Explained how to use ``version-info --custom`` in the User Guide. (Neil Martinsen-Burrell) API BREAKS: * Support for loading plugins from zip files and ``bzrlib.plugin.load_from_zip()`` function are deprecated. (Alexander Belchenko) TESTING: * The branch interface tests were invalid for branches using rich-root repositories because the empty string is not a valid file-id. (Robert Collins) INTERNALS: * ``Graph.iter_ancestry`` returns the ancestry of revision ids. Similar to ``Repository.get_revision_graph()`` except it includes ghosts and you can stop part-way through. (John Arbash Meinel) * ``Graph.iter_ancestry`` returns the ancestry of revision ids. Similar to ``Repository.get_revision_graph()`` except it includes ghosts and you can stop part-way through. (John Arbash Meinel) * New module ``tools/package_mf.py`` provide custom module finder for python packages (improves standard python library's modulefinder.py) used by ``setup.py`` script while building standalone bzr.exe. (Alexander Belchenko) * New remote method ``RemoteBzrDir.find_repositoryV2`` adding support for detecting external lookup support on remote repositories. This method is now attempted first when lookup up repositories, leading to an extra round trip on older bzr smart servers. (Robert Collins) * Repository formats have a new supported-feature attribute ``supports_external_lookups`` used to indicate repositories which support falling back to other repositories when they have partial data. (Robert Collins) * ``Repository.get_revision_graph_with_ghosts`` and ``bzrlib.revision.(common_ancestor,MultipleRevisionSources,common_graph)`` have been deprecated. (John Arbash Meinel) * ``Tree.iter_changes`` is now a public API, replacing the work-in-progress ``Tree._iter_changes``. The api is now considered stable and ready for external users. (Aaron Bentley) * The bzrdir format registry now accepts an ``alias`` keyword to register_metadir, used to indicate that a format name is an alias for some other format and thus should not be reported when describing the format. (Robert Collins)

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TurboGears joins Google Summer of Code - Students Wanted!
by Christopher Arndt March 19, 2008

March 19, 2008

Hello everybody, the TurboGears team is very happy to announce that the project has been accepted as a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2008 mentoring organization. This means that we are looking for students who are interested in working on a TurboGears related project over the Summer and want to become part of the avant-garde that is Python web development and Open Source! Students who get accepted to the program will receive a US$ 4,500 stipend over the course of the program! We have listed a number of very interesting project suggestions on our GSoC ideas page on the wiki [1]. If you want to work with the TurboGears project, please go there and look for anything that kindles you programming-itch or feel free to come up with your own project ideas and discuss them with our mentors on the development mailing list! [2] Student applications open next Monday, March 24 and end a week later on Monday, March 31, 2008, so hurry up and get your project proposal and application ready now! If you are not a student, you can still get involved by becoming a mentor or by us helping spread the word and attracting potential student partipiciants. Watch out on the TurboGears mailing list [3] for a follow up "Help wanted!" post, which will list a few ideas on how to promote the GSoC idea and the TurboGears GSoC participation. In the meantime, you can go to our central TurboGears GSoC page [4] for more information and resources. This is a fantastic opportunity for both students and the TurboGears project. We hope that with the help of the students, Google, our GSoC team and (who knows?) you, we can have a big share in advancing the evolution of Python web frameworks! Let there be code! Chistopher Arndt TurboGears GSoC project administrator <ghop(a)turbogears.org> [1] http://docs.turbogears.org/GSoC/Ideas2008 [2] http://groups.google.com/group/turbogears-trunk [3] http://groups.google.com/group/turbogears [4] http://docs.turbogears.org/GSoC/

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ANN: cssutils 0.9.5b1
by Christof Hoeke March 19, 2008

March 19, 2008

what is it ---------- A Python package to parse and build CSS Cascading Style Sheets. (Not a renderer though!) main changes ------------ 0.9.5b1 - **API CHANGE**: ``cssutils.css.CSSSStyleSheet.replaceUrls(replacer)`` has been **DEPRECATED** but is available as an utility function so simply use ``cssutils.replaceUrls(sheet, replacer)`` instead. For the why see ``getUrls(sheet)`` below. - **API CHANGE/FEATURE**: ``parseString`` has a new parameter ``encoding`` now which is used if a ``str`` is given for cssText. Otherwise it is ignored. (patch by doerwalter) - API CHANGE/FEATURE: ``.parse() .parseString()`` and constructor of ``CSSStyleSheet`` have a new parameter ``title`` needed for the cascade (yet to be implemented ;). + **FEATURE**: Referenced stylesheet in an @import rule is read and parsed now if possible. Therefor the ``href`` given during parsing (parameter ``href`` to the ``parse*`` functions is used. It is also properly set on imported rules. The ``name`` property of the @import rule is set as the imported sheets ``title`` property. + **FEATURE**: Added ``cssutils.getUrls(sheet)`` utility method to get all ``url(urlstring)`` values in ``CSSImportRules`` and ``CSSStyleDeclaration`` objects (properties). As this function and the above mentioned ``replaceUrls(sheet, replacer)`` are useful not only for a single sheet but (later) also for a stylesheet list they are not methods of CSSStyleSheet anymore (also because they are not part of the official DOM spec). (patch by doerwalter) + FEATURE: Added ``cssutils.parseURL(url, encoding=None, ...)`` + BUGFIX: Fixes Issue #10, using full ``$LastChangedDate: 2008-03-19 22:47:34 +0100 (Mi, 19 Mrz 2008) $`` in source files breaks code for some locales. Now only in a few files this svn:keywords replacement is used and only to a fixed length without the problematic part. In all other files ``$Id: ANN.txt 1164 2008-03-19 21:47:34Z cthedot $`` is used which also includes simple but sufficient date information. + **BUGFIX/IMPROVEMENT**: Handling of trailing content, WS and comments in rules should be more consistent and properly handled now, added tests. Exception is ``CSSCharsetRule`` where no comments are allowed at all. - TESTS: **Tests need ``minimock`` now!** Install with ``easy_install minimock`` Note: CSSValue, CSSValueList, and CSSPrimitiveValue and the relevant methods/properties Property.cssValue and CSSStyleDeclaration.getPropertyCSSValue are more or less DEPRECATED and will probably be replaced with interfaces defined in CSSOM. For now use the properties and methods that handle values as simple strings, e.g. ``Property.value``. As the aforementioned classes are not hardly that useful anyway this should not be a big problem but please beware if you use or have used them. If you think this a bad idea please let me know! license ------- cssutils is published under the LGPL version 2.1 or later, see http://cthedot.de/cssutils/ The included `encutils <http://cthedot.de/encutils/>`__ has been updated to version 0.8.2 with a compatible LGPL license. `restserver.py <http://cthedot.de/restserver/>`__ has been updates to version 2.1 which is in the public domain now (no Creative Commons license anymore). So only a single license (the LGPL) is used throughout cssutils now. If you have other licensing needs please let me know. download -------- For download options see http://cthedot.de/cssutils/ cssutils needs Python 2.4 or higher (tested with Python 2.5.2 on Vista only) Bug reports (via Google code), comments, etc are very much appreciated! Thanks. Christof

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Colorado Python training in May
by lutz＠rmi.net March 18, 2008

March 18, 2008

Python author and trainer Mark Lutz will be teaching another 3-day Python class at a conference center in Longmont, Colorado, on May 14-16, 2008. This is a public training session open to individual enrollments, and covers the same topics as the 3-day onsite sessions that Mark teaches, with hands-on lab work. For more information on this session, please visit its web page: http://home.earthlink.net/~python-training/longmont-public-classes.htm For additional background on the class itself, see our home page: http://home.earthlink.net/~python-training Thanks for your interest. --Mark Lutz at Python Training Services

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Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 18)
by Gabriel Genellina March 18, 2008

March 18, 2008

QOTW: "Most people don't use Python by accident, and most people don't continue to use Python by accident" - Chris Hagner, during the talk "Why Python Sucks (But Works Great For Us)" at PyCon 2008 "I don't want a macro facility in the language _because_ it would be so cool." - Laura Creighton Comments about PyCon 2008: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/2b6cb0… http://opag.ca/pipermail/opag/2008-March/002704.html Immutable types and identity: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/194ce3… Avoiding a possible deadlock with subprocess when redirecting input and output: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/c197df… Guido on Py3000: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=227041 "arrays are more efficient than lists" - what does that actually mean? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/60b15d… Iterating over generators may not be obvious: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/169bc4… Why isn't a method identical to itself? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/e48b60… People worried about sort() dropping its cmp argument: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/458d97… enum-like identifiers: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/7012fd617… Experiences with Python and C++ / Java (portability, performance): http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/bcc6361e7… Cython, Pyrex, ShedSkin, type annotation (and even compiler availability issues!): http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/58a353… ======================================================================== 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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ANN: Release 1.9.1 of SimPy (Simulation in Python) package
by kgmuller March 17, 2008

March 17, 2008

We announce the availability of SimPy version 1.9.1. This is an important bug-fix release of SimPy 1.9 which any user of SimPy 1.9 should download. SimPy 1.9.1 can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=62366 . The SimPy homepage is at http://SimPy.SourceForge.Net . What is SimPy? ============== SimPy (= Simulation in Python) is an object-oriented, process-based discrete-event simulation language completely implemented in Python. It is released under the GNU Lesser GPL (LGPL). SimPy provides the modeler with components of a simulation model including processes, for active components like customers, messages, and vehicles, and resources, for passive components that form limited capacity congestion points like servers, checkout counters, and tunnels. It also provides monitor variables to aid in gathering statistics. Random variates are provided by the standard Python random module. Many users claim that SimPy is one of the cleanest, easiest to use discrete event simulation packages! SimPy is in use at many universities, research institutes and in industry. SimPy comes with data collection capabilities, GUI and plotting packages. It can be easily interfaced to other packages, such as plotting, statistics, or database systems. SimPy is platform-independent and runs on all systems on which Python 2.3 or later is available. Acknowledgements ================ The bugs were identified and reported by members of the SimPy user community. Thanks for this! Collaboration works! ============================== Release notes for SimPy 1.9.1 ============================== Repairs ======== SimPy 1.9.1 cures two bugs: (1) Excessive memory requirements of large or long-running scripts. This performance problem was caused by circular references between Process and event notice instances. (2) Runtime errors for pre-empts of processes holding multiple Resource objects. Additions ============ In addition to all the other, extensive documentation, SimPy 1.9.1 provides a short manual which only addresses the basic facilities of SimPy. You could consider this as "SimPy light". This manual is aimed at introducing SimPy to beginners. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (end of Release Notes) Enjoy! Klaus Müller Tony Vignaux

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ANN: OpenOpt 0.17 (free numerical optimization framework)
by dmitrey March 15, 2008

March 15, 2008

Greetings, We're pleased to announce: OpenOpt 0.17 (release), free (license: BSD) optimization framework for Python language programmers, is available for download. Brief introduction to numerical optimization problems and related software: http://scipy.org/scipy/scikits/wiki/OOIntroduction Changes since previous release (December 15): * new classes: GLP (global problem), MMP (mini-max problem) * several new solvers written: goldenSection, nsmm * some more solvers connected: scipy_slsqp, bvls, galileo * possibility to change default solver parameters * user-defined callback functions * changes in auto derivatives check * "noise" parameter for noisy functions * some changes to NLP/NSP solver ralg * some changes in graphical output: initial estimations xlim, ylim * scaling * some bugfixes Newsline: http://openopt.blogspot.com/ Homepage: http://scipy.org/scipy/scikits/wiki/OpenOpt

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