Mailman 3 July 2009 - Python-announce-list

FLiP 1.0: Logical Framework in Python
by Jon Jacky 31 Jul '09

31 Jul '09

Flip is a logical framework written in Python. Code, documentation, and downloads are available: http://staff.washington.edu/jon/flip/www/ A logical framework is a library for defining logics and writing applications such as theorem provers. One Flip application is a proof checker for entering and editing proofs in natural deduction style: [(Text('~Ax.P(x) |- Ex.~P(x)'), comment), (Not(A(x, P(x))), given), (Not(E(x, Not(P(x)))), assume), (New(x), new), (Not(P(x)), assume), (E(x, Not(P(x))), Ei, 4), (F, contra, 5,2), (Not(Not(P(x))), raa, 4,6), (P(x), ne, 7), (A(x, P(x)), Ai, 3,8), (F, contra, 9,1), (Not(Not(E(x, Not(P(x))))), raa, 2,10), (E(x, Not(P(x))), ne, 11)] The checker can use different logics; Flip comes with several. You can add another logic, or add axioms and derived rules, by writing a module in Python. Python is both the object language and the metalanguage. Formulas, inference rules, and entire proofs are Python expressions. Prover commands are Python functions. The Python interpreter itself is the only user interface to the proof checker application. (It is not necessary to know much Python to use the checker.) Flip was undertaken as a Python programming exercise. It is not intended to compete with industrial-strength theorem provers such as HOL nor with nicely-designed educational provers such as Jape. That said, the checker is quite capable of working the examples and exercises in university-level textbooks on logic for computer science or mathematics (such as those by Kaye, Huth and Ryan, or Bornat).

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pySerial 2.5-rc1 (release candidate)
by Chris Liechti 30 Jul '09

30 Jul '09

I'm happy to announce a release candidate of pySerial: 2.5-rc1 http://pyserial.sourceforge.net/ Whats new: - Updated documentation (now using Sphinx, see link above). - Windows implementation uses ctypes (instead of pywin32). - Python 3.x compatibility. - Using "bytes" type when available. - Works together with Pythons new io library. - Several bugfixes. - Updated and new examples. - See CHANGES.txt in the distribution for full list. Source archive and Windows installers can be downloaded from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyserial/files/ The Windows installer for Python 3.x has py3k in its name, the other one is for Python 2.x. The source archive's setup.py should automatically convert using 2to3 when run with Python 3.x. chris -- What is pySerial? Quoting from the home page: This module encapsulates the access for the serial port. It provides backends for Python running on Windows, Linux, BSD (possibly any POSIX compliant system), Jython and IronPython (.NET and Mono). The module named "serial" automatically selects the appropriate backend.

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ANN: Leo 4.6.1 final released
by Edward K Ream 30 Jul '09

30 Jul '09

Leo 4.6.1 final is now available at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3458&package_id=29106 Leo is a text editor, data organizer, project manager and much more. See: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/intro.html Leo 4.6.1 fixes several minor bugs in Leo 4.6. The highlights of Leo 4.6 -------------------------- - Cached external files *greatly* reduces the time to load .leo files. - Leo now features a modern Qt interface by default. Leo's legacy Tk interface can also be used. - New --config, --file and --gui command-line options. - Leo tests syntax of .py files when saving them. - Leo can now open any kind of file into @edit nodes. - @auto-rst nodes allow easy editing of reStructuredText files. - Properties of commanders, positions and nodes simplify programming. - Improved Leo's unit testing framework. - Leo now requires Python 2.5 or later. - Dozens of small improvements and bug fixes. Links: ------ Leo: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html Forum: http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor Download: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3458 Bzr: http://code.launchpad.net/leo-editor/ Quotes: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/testimonials.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward K. Ream email: edreamleo(a)yahoo.com Leo: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Call for diversity
by Aahz 29 Jul '09

29 Jul '09

The Python community is both incredibly diverse (Python 3.1's release manager was not yet eighteen years old) and incredibly lacking in diversity (none of the regular committers is a woman). Kirrily Robert gave a keynote at OSCON last week about women in Open Source, and I blogged about the lunchtime aftermath (if you're not familiar with the issues, I suggest making sure to follow all the links I included): http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=263671 Thinking further, I believe that the Python community really needs to be more active in creating diversity. As my blog says, the first step is for us to admit that there is a problem. I believe that the next step is for us as a community to make a formal statement supporting diversity. I've created a new mailing list (diversity(a)python.org) to discuss the wording of a diversity statement, along with discussing diversity issues in general. I invite anyone interested in the subject of diversity to join the list -- even if you disagree that actively supporting diversity is needed, I would like a chance to convince you. http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity Please note that I believe that the Python community is generally welcoming and that the Python community would jump on anyone who behaved in an overtly prejudiced way (unlike some controversies in other communities). However, I think that we have also inherited the lack of diversity in Open Source as a whole, and I believe that taking a more active role in building diversity will build a more vibrant Python community. After all, as Kirrily pointed out, the more inclusive we are, the more people we have working on Python. I just started a new job this week, so I'm not going to be pushing this any time soon -- but I also feel that I need to throw this out so that other people can get involved if they want. -- Aahz (aahz(a)pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are precisely the optimal choices is much less important." --Henry Spencer

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[ANN] Pyjamas 0.6pre2 Python Web Widget Set and Javascript Compiler
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 28 Jul '09

28 Jul '09

http://pyjs.org this is a pre-release announcement, 0.6pre2, of the pyjamas widget set and python-to-javascript compiler. there are over 110 entries in the CHANGELOG since the last stable release, 0.5p1, and so it was deemed sensible to invite people to test this version before its next stable release, 0.6. pyjamas, being a port of GWT to python, comprises four main components: * a stand-alone python-to-javascript compiler * a desktop-based wrapper around python-xpcom or pywebkitgtk * a browser "DOM" model wrapper interface * a widget set similar to pygtk2 / pyqt4, based on DOM manipulation significantly in the 0.6 series, pyjamas-desktop has been incorporated into the build: "python Hello.py" will start a stand-alone app (just as you would with pygtk2 or pyqt4) and "pyjsbuild Hello" will compile the javascript version(s). the combination means that pyjamas can run python applications - unmodified - in all major web browsers, or on the desktop (using gecko or webkit) in a similar fashion to adobe AIR. in the javascript version: somewhere along the line, a massive performance hit was introduced by accident. this has now been fixed. however, random desperate attempts to improve performance, before the mistake was corrected, mean that the pyjamas 0.6pre2 python-to-javascript compiler produces code that is stunningly quick. also in the 0.6pre2 release, "strict" python options have now been introduced, so that developers can expect much more support for the standard python 2.5 / 2.6 language semantics. the "-O" option disables many of these features, bringing a quite significant speed increase, by sacrificing python compatibility. that's just the way it has to be. downloads can be found by following the links from http://pyjs.org - sourceforge, code.google.com, pypi, all the usual places. lastly - thank you to everyone who's helped with pyjamas: bernd, bernd, jurgen, christian, kees, ondrej and many more, and especially thank you to the people who helped out by pointing out bugs in the 0.6pre1 release, please keep it up! l.

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Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jul 28)
by Gabriel Genellina 28 Jul '09

28 Jul '09

QOTW: "But there's another principle at work here that's less well known, and that was first articulated to me by Robert Dewar: You can remove linear factors by profiling, but it's much harder to undo bad algorithmic decisions. In particular, whether a program runs in O(n) or O(n^2) sometimes depends on decisions that have to be frozen fairly early in the design." - Andrew Koenig Comparing the performance of the same algorithm using many compilers: CPython, psyco, Cython, ShedSkin, Unladen Swallow, Java, C and D: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/8d793c… MRAB has written a new implementation of re module with many new features, and he's looking for feedback: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/16c139… Importing two modules with the same name from different directories: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/3cb83a… Cleanly exiting an application, even if it gets killed by a signal: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/d60b8e… How can a child thread notify a parent thread of its status? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/d1d7f5… How to attach a docstring to global constants/variables? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/ac5418… In Python -unlike other languages- it does not make sense to treat numbers (scalars) as vectors of length 1: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/3ef498… isinstance may take a tuple of types as its second argument: why a tuple, and not a list, or a set? http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2009-July/721205.html How to overcome the normal 2GB allocation limit of Windows XP, 32bits: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/59851d… Distinguishing active generators from exhausted ones: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/9ff179… Peter Otten must be, undoubtedly, Sherlock Holmes reincarnated: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/838177… And Piet van Oostrum is not much behind him: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/d1f862… ======================================================================== 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 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 enthusiasts": 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/group/comp.lang.python.announce/topics Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..." Updates appear more-than-weekly: http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html The Python Package Index catalogues packages. http://www.python.org/pypi/ 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/donations/ The Summary of Python Tracker Issues is an automatically generated report summarizing new bugs, closed ones, and patch submissions. http://search.gmane.org/?author=status%40bugs.python.org&group=gmane.comp.p… 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://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/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, see: http://www.python.org/channews.rdf 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/ 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 Enjoy the *Python Magazine*. http://pymag.phparch.com/ *Py: the Journal of the Python Language* http://www.pyzine.com Dr.Dobb's Portal is another source of Python news and articles: http://www.ddj.com/TechSearch/searchResults.jhtml?queryText=python and Python articles regularly appear at IBM DeveloperWorks: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/search/searchResults.jsp?searchSite=dW&se… Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here: http://search.gmane.org/?query=python+URL+weekly+news+links&group=gmane.com… http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=Python-URL!+group%3Acomp.lang.pyth… http://lwn.net/Search/DoSearch?words=python-url&ctype3=yes&cat_25=yes 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]: pyxser-1.1r --- python xml serialization
by Daniel Molina Wegener 27 Jul '09

27 Jul '09

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 Hello, I'm pleased to announce pyxser-1.1r, a Python-Object to XML serializer and deserializer. This package it's completly written in C and licensed under LGPLv3. The tested Python versions are 2.5.X and 2.7.X. * home page: http://coder.cl/software/pyxser * hosted at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyxser/ The current ChangeLog is as follows: - -----8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----- 1.1r (2009.05.09): Daniel Molina Wegener <dmw(a)coder.cl> * Removed bugs concerning XML schema declaration for output documents. * Removed bugs concerning XML schema design for C14N serialization. * Removed exc argument from C14N serialization functions, because they have no sense. * Code cleanup with function arguments (C code). * All changes seems to be transparent for previous versions. - -----8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----- Also, I need a little bit of feedback. I want it to be able to serialize files and buffers: I've planned to allow the user to have three options: ignore files, serialize them in base64 encoding and just put the file name as string. But my question concerns how the files and buffers are deserialized: I must allow the user to dump the files on a directory, put the complete file on a buffer object, or just extract the base64 encoded block? Best regards and thanks in advance... - -- .O. | Daniel Molina Wegener | FreeBSD & Linux ..O | dmw [at] coder [dot] cl | Open Standards OOO | http://coder.cl/ | FOSS Developer -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (FreeBSD) iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJKbmrBAAoJEHxqfq6Y4O5NUM4P/2+wdZDWkVWrfbg3DA68n4C7 Le4BTCHF9bZBahDXqIq46f2jT6hfNuh+y7nrk3q5V7MchJdHRZU+Sft99mVaBfrT W7QCMg1JDs8ibOCTy+WN/j2L/gdjFWaez4jTfXU9qz6yBYd1drm6nRG1E36uiaF8 dLYDJgb+2Iykg3cYXnqYSKZqzlQxsmgun6+XlE1C0oWUknkSGqUdk4dPORXhbGAO H+EJLClKmM9Xbg2B9XaGhwHmp73bKgDRj8+2RPN8oQXjNgawwo9gUTsGVwVPyOuI UmbJkKSjkDcxwfLP/nGvIDchdZ+4hCDtFpuEuOUHuk52ga3K5WZXtuYaPU6kup+n CgQZDMNA9qbKsplMuIkakTE3ahAfCCttBHj4PQRshKQkPzHmVxHlo9N0F3jJumI8 1YO17QjBiSmTjAy0XUTicXQd6xC5iF9XnrIMewNaAOt1EFK7Kj+P/Hckoqc/QQtL ANX/wD3YfoyZJ+2a8a8t2Wz2xINZRfUvlyjv7lmogbjHcyeO4XcRoUGmSqrwYzE/ /dlviErz73eTkYdieQgXePKUeV8MvIscCYipfWFsHdUosjQBkIiecrCsI9vDwhNe AZREgRDD9Eh5CWIWEwRfesUy6Kw30xbY+Bk9nSTryWTKB5KAhb3eLUx3h55XG3Bd R9ukduTENnYcYFYRl/iP =GeVp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Next meeting: Tuesday 11th August
by Richard Jones 27 Jul '09

27 Jul '09

The next meeting of the Melbourne Python Users Group will be on Tuesday the 11th of August starting at 6:30pm. We'll be meeting at Horse Bazaar again but this time we'll have use of their projector. We'll have time for several short presentations or lightning talks. Meeting details, location and talks list are at: http://wiki.python.org/moin/MelbournePUG If you've seen something cool or are doing something cool then we'd like you to tell everyone about it! Presentations could be 5 minutes or up to 15 minutes if you'd like to ramble for a bit longer. I'll be getting up to talk a bit about my experiences playing with IronPython - what's cool and what's downright odd :) If you've got an idea for a talk just add it to the wiki page. Richard

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argparse 1.0 - Command-line parsing library
by Steven Bethard 26 Jul '09

26 Jul '09

======================= Announcing argparse 1.0 ======================= The argparse module provides an easy, declarative interface for creating command line tools, which knows how to: * parse the arguments and flags from sys.argv * convert arg strings into objects for your program * format and print informative help messages * and much more... The argparse module improves on the standard library optparse module in a number of ways including: * handling positional arguments * supporting sub-commands * allowing alternative option prefixes like + and / * handling zero-or-more and one-or-more style arguments * producing more informative usage messages * providing a much simpler interface for custom types and actions Download argparse ================= The argparse homepage has links for source, MSI and single file distributions of argparse: http://code.google.com/p/argparse/ About this release ================== This release includes a number of new features: * Support for Python versions 2.3 through 3.1. No need to run 2to3 or anything like that -- the argparse source code is both fully 2.X and 3.X compatible. * ``ArgumentParser`` grew a ``parse_known_args`` method which works like ``parse_args`` but collects unrecognized arguments into a list instead of raising an exception * The ``ArgumentParser`` constructor accepts a new parameter for reading additional arguments from files. For example, ``fromfile_prefix_chars='@'`` means that arguments like ``@file`` should be replaced by the arguments read from the given file. * A new formatter class, ``ArgumentsDefaultHelpFormatter`` is available, which will automatically add ``(default: %(default)s)`` to all argument help messages * The ``metavar`` parameter to ``add_argument`` now accepts a tuple of strings in additional to a single string so that more than one name can be specified. * The ``add_subparsers`` method now accepts ``title`` and ``description`` parameters which will cause it to display like an argument group in help messages.

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ANN: python-ldap-2.3.9
by Michael Ströder 26 Jul '09

26 Jul '09

Find a new release of python-ldap: http://www.python-ldap.org/ python-ldap provides an object-oriented API to access LDAP directory servers from Python programs. It mainly wraps the OpenLDAP 2.x libs for that purpose. Additionally it contains modules for other LDAP-related stuff (e.g. processing LDIF, LDAPURLs and LDAPv3 schema). Ciao, Michael. -- Michael Ströder E-Mail: michael(a)stroeder.com http://www.stroeder.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Released 2.3.9 2009-07-26 Changes since 2.3.8: Lib/ * All modules (ldap, ldif, dsml and ldapurl) have common version number now * Non-exported function ldif.needs_base64() was abandoned and is now implemented as method LDIFWriter._needs_base64_encoding(). This allows sub-classes of LDIFWriter to implement determining whether attribute values have to be base64-encoded in a different manner and is the same approach like in class dsml.DSMLWriter. * LDAPUrlExtension._parse() now gracefully handles LDAP URL extensions without explicit exvalue as being set with implicit value None. Modules/ * New LDAP option constant ldap.OPT_X_SASL_NOCANON supported in LDAPObject.get/set_option()

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Python-announce-list July 2009