Mailman 3 December 1999 - Python-Dev

re: Open Source design competition / Python / software tools
by gvwilson＠nevex.com Dec. 24, 1999

Dec. 24, 1999

Hi, folks. I hope you don't mind another mail out of the blue, but I got notice on Saturday that the Department of Energy is giving me $860K over two years to support development of easier-to-use software engineering tools. All of the work will be Open Source, and will be done in Python, with a strong emphasis on design, testing, and documentation. The project's long-term objective is to encourage scientists and engineers to treat programs in the same way as they do other experiments, i.e. … [View More]

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Re:[Python-Dev] Fixed Decimal types
by Da Silva, Mike Dec. 23, 1999

Dec. 23, 1999

Andy Robinson wrote: For the work I do, simply taking the precision of the most precise input (4.00L)would do the trick, but your answer (4.0000L) is purer. We should provide a rounding function, and in practice anyone using such a function would round (or floor, or ceiling) to get to the desired precision immediately. I'm not sure on division either but I'm sure there are precedents to look at. The AS400 provides a useful example of the right way to do scaled decimals. In … [View More]

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Re: [Python-Dev] Fixed-decimal types
by Andy Robinson Dec. 23, 1999

Dec. 23, 1999

--- Guido van Rossum <guido(a)CNRI.Reston.VA.US> wrote: > What would be scale of the product of two > fixed-decimal numbers? > E.g. is 2.00L * 2.00L equal to 4.0000L, or equal to > 4.00L? There are > arguments for either. Same question for division > (harder, I think). Most commonly one is trying to avoid rounding errors when dealing with money - a few cents rounding error tends to result in a few billable hours with the accountants at the end of the year! SQL … [View More]

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Re: [Python-Dev] Re: [Python-checkins] CVS: python/dist/src/Lib getopt.py,1.7,1.8
by Jack Jansen Dec. 23, 1999

Dec. 23, 1999

> Vladimir.Marangozov(a)inrialpes.fr: > > > Yes. Besides, I still think that string-based exceptions are just > > convenient for quick & dirty, throw-away test scripts. > > They have a hard-to-understand quirk though: the id() of the string is > used to check rather than its value, so that except "foo" doesn't > necessarily catch raise "foo"; but due to various optimization, this > usually works, and people get bent out of shape when it doesn't. I sort-of … [View More]

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Re: [Python-Dev] Batteries Included?
by Jack Jansen Dec. 20, 1999

Dec. 20, 1999

> IMHO the "much simpler freezing process" is archive files. A simple > script can build them, imputil can import them, and the only > remaining problem is to find them. Please see: Archive files solves the problem for Python modules. But that leaves the problem of dynamically loaded modules. And resources for dialogs and such, if you use native GUI stuff on Mac or Windows. And most serious applications that I've seen (GRiNS and Zope, to name two, Mailman is the only exception I … [View More]

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posix module
by Fred L. Drake, Jr. Dec. 20, 1999

Dec. 20, 1999

Ok, I think I'm done with the posix module updates, modulo bugs and additional symbols for the *conf*() tables. That leaves us with the following status for interfaces that Andrew brought up in the message that started this spate of additions: Worth adding? ============= opendir(), readdir(), closedir() -- not added The only thing these give us that os.listdir() doesn't is the inode numbers. Unless someone actually wants those, it's not worth having. Worth … [View More]

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Re: [Python-Dev] Batteries Included?
by Jack Jansen Dec. 20, 1999

Dec. 20, 1999

Recently, Jeremy Hylton <jeremy(a)cnri.reston.va.us> said: > Perhaps the right long-term solution (post-distutils) is to split > Python into a core architected by Guido and a bazaar-style standard > library maintained in a more apache-style. I can't help feeling uncomfortable with this. I've had quite some work to get an Apache with SSL up and running, even though someone gave me quite precise instructions. With Perl I fared even worse, despite their distutils-like package, … [View More]

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Year 2000 O'Reilly Python Conference
by David Ascher Dec. 19, 1999

Dec. 19, 1999

I just got off the phone with someone at O'Reilly, who is starting to plan the next O'Reilly Open Source Convention. I've agreed to be the chair of the Python conference, just so that there are no delays in getting the conference organized. If someone feels that I should not be chair, speak now and we can figure out who takes the 'job'. There are short-term and long-term issues to discuss: Short term: - We need a program committee -- If you're interested in being on said committee or know … [View More]

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Batteries Included?
by Guido van Rossum Dec. 17, 1999

Dec. 17, 1999

I like the batteries included approach, but I also feel resistence against including stuff I cannot maintain. The XML code base is a point in case; I don't understand enough about XML. (I just read that xmllib.py is "illegal". Jeez! What happened? Did Congress pass a law against it?) I think it may be time for separate Python distributions, like Linux -- I can concentrate on the core, and keep it really small; others can make all-encompassing distributions. There are currently some … [View More]

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Re: [Distutils] ANNOUNCE: Distutils 0.1.2 released
by Greg Stein Dec. 16, 1999

Dec. 16, 1999

On Thu, 16 Dec 1999, Guido van Rossum wrote: >... > I realize it's just a rant. In this case (distutils) your advice is > correct. (I usually paraphrase it as "release early, release often".) True. I prefer that phrase, too, but I used it on JimA earlier in the day or the previous day. I didn't want to sound like a broken record :-). But that is why I moved into <rant> mode... it seems like the mindset was spreading :-) I've railed at AMK for it, too :-), when he was talking … [View More]

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