Mailman 3 February 2001 - Python-Dev

random.jumpback?
by Skip Montanaro 15 Feb '01

15 Feb '01

I was adding __all__ to the random module and I noticed this very unpythonic example in the module docstring: >>> g = Random(42) # arbitrary >>> g.random() 0.25420336316883324 >>> g.jumpahead(6953607871644L - 1) # move *back* one >>> g.random() 0.25420336316883324 Presuming backing up the seed is a reasonable thing to do (I haven't got much experience with random numbers), why doesn't the Random class have a jumpback method instead of forcing the user to know the magic number to use with jumpahead? def jumpback(self, n): return self.jumpahead(6953607871644L - n) Skip

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threads and gethostbyname
by Fredrik Lundh 15 Feb '01

15 Feb '01

We have a Tkinter-based application that does DNS lookups (using socket.gethostbyname) in a background thread. Under 1.5.2, this worked without a hitch. However, under 2.0, the same program tends to lock up on some computers. I'm not 100% sure (it's a bit hard to debug), but it looks like a global lock problem... Any ideas? Is this supposed to work at all? Cheers /F

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[development doc updates]
by Fred L. Drake 15 Feb '01

15 Feb '01

The development version of the documentation has been updated: http://python.sourceforge.net/devel-docs/

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Unit Testing in San Diego
by Andy Robinson 14 Feb '01

14 Feb '01

The O'Reilly Conference Committee needs proposals about a week ago for the conference in San Diego on July 24th-27th. I think there should be a short talk on unit testing, showing how to use PyUnit, Doctest, and Quixote if they have not all merged into one glorious unified whole by then. I can do this - we've used PyUnit a lot lately - but have other talks I'd rather concentrate on. Is there anyone here who will be there and would like to give such a talk? I'm sure the committee would welcome a submission. Andy Robinson CEO and Chief Architect, ReportLab Inc.

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failure: 2.1a2 on HP-UX with native compiler
by Charles G Waldman 14 Feb '01

14 Feb '01

Allow me to start off with a personal note. I am no longer @fnal.gov, I have a new job which is very interesting and challenging but not particularly Python-related - [my new employer is geodesic.com] I will have much less time to devote to Python from now on, but I'm still interested, and since I have access to a lot of unusual hardware at my new job (Linux/360 anybody?) I am going to try to download and test alphas and betas as much as time permits. Along these lines, I tried building the 2.1a2 version on an SMP HP box: otto:Python-2.1a2$ uname -a HP-UX otto B.11.00 U 9000/800 137901547 unlimited-user license this box has both gcc and the native compiler installed, but not g++. I tried to configure with the command: otto:Python-2.1a2$ ./configure --without-gcc creating cache ./config.cache checking MACHDEP... hp-uxB checking for --without-gcc... yes checking for --with-cxx=<compiler>... no checking for c++... no checking for g++... no checking for gcc... gcc checking whether the C++ compiler (gcc ) works... no configure: error: installation or configuration problem: C++ compiler cannot create executables. Seems like the "--without-gcc" flag is being completely ignored! I'll try to track this down as time permits.

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Case sensitive import.
by Steven D. Majewski 14 Feb '01

14 Feb '01

I see from one of the comments on my patch #103459 that there is a history to this issue (patch #103154) I had assumed that renaming modules and possibly breaking existing code was not an option, but this seems to have been considered in the discussion on that earlier patch. Is there any consensus on how to deal with this ? I would *really* like to get SOME fix -- either my patch, or a renaming of FCNTL, TERMIOS, SOCKET, into the next release. It's not clear to me whether the issues on other systems are the same. On mac-osx, the OS is BSD unix based and when using a unix file system, it's case sensitive. But the standard filesystem is Apple's HFS+, which is case preserving but case insensitive. ( That means that opening "abc" will succeed if there is a file named "abc", "ABC", "Abc" , "aBc" ... , but a directory listing will show "abc" ) I had guessed that the CHECK_IMPORT_CASE ifdefs and the corresponding configure switch were there for this sort of problem, and all I had to do was add a macosx implementation of check_case(), but returning false from check_case causes the search to fail -- it does not continue until it find a matching module. So it appears that I don't understand the issues on other platforms and what CHECK_IMPORT_CASE intends to fix. -- Steve Majewski

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Cool link
by Tim Peters 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

Mentioned on c.l.py: http://cseng.aw.com/book/related/0,3833,0805311912+20,00.html This is the full text of "Advanced Programming Language Design", available online a chapter at a time in PDF format. Chapter 2 (Control Structures) has a nice intro to coroutines in Simula and iterators in CLU, including a funky implementation of the latter via C macros that assumes you can get away with longjmp()'ing "up the stack" (i.e., jumping back into a routine that has already been longjmp()'ed out of). Also an intro to continuations in Io: CLU iterators are truly elegant. They are clear and expressive. They provide a single, uniform way to program all loops. They can be implemented efficiently on a single stack. ... Io continuations provide a lot of food for thought. They spring from an attempt to gain utter simplicity in a programming language. They seem to be quite expressive, but they suffer from a lack of clarity. No matter how often I have stared at the examples of Io programming, I have always had to resort to traces to figure out what is happening. I think they are just too obscure to ever be valuable. Of course in the handful of other languages that support them, continuations are a wizard-level implementation hook for building nicer abstractions. In Io you can't even write a loop without manipulating continuations explicitly. takes-all-kinds-ly y'rs - tim

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Python 2.1 release schedule
by Jeremy Hylton 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

I updated the Python 2.1 release schedule (PEP 226): http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0226.html The schedule now has some realistic future release dates. The plan is to move to beta 1 before the Python conference, probably issue a second beta in mid- to late-March, and aim for a final release sometime in April. The six-week period between first beta and final release is about as long as the beta period for 2.0, which had many more significant changes. I have also added a section on open issues as we had in the 2.0 release schedule. If you are responsible for any major changes or fixes before the first beta, please add them to that section or send me mail about them. Remember that we are in feature freeze; only bug fixes between now and beta 1. Jeremy

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re: Set and Iterator BOFs
by Greg Wilson 12 Feb '01

12 Feb '01

> > Greg Wilson > > Barbara Fuller at Foretec has set up two mailing lists: > > > > Iterator-BOF(a)python9.org (for March 6) > > Set-BOF(a)python9.org (for March 7) > > > > for discussing admin related to these BOFs. > Guido van Rossum: > Assuming these aren't mailman lists, how does one subscribe? Or are > these just aliases that go to a fixed recipient (e.g. you or Barbara)? The latter --- these are for Barbara's convenience, so that she can get a feel for how many people will need to be hustled through lunch. Thanks, Greg p.s. I have set up http://groups.yahoo.com/group/python-iter and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/python-sets; Guido, would you prefer discussion of sets and iterators to be moved to these lists, or to stay on python-dev?

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re: cool link
by Greg Wilson 12 Feb '01

12 Feb '01

> From: "Tim Peters" <tim.one(a)home.com> > > Mentioned on c.l.py: > > http://cseng.aw.com/book/related/0,3833,0805311912+20,00.html > > This is the full text of "Advanced Programming Language > Design", available online a chapter at a time in PDF format. Greg Wilson:

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