Mailman 3 March 2005 - Python-Dev

Final PyCon Keynote from Google Speaker
by Steve Holden 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

Dear Python Colleague: I am happy to say that we have now completed the PyCon DC 2005 keynote speaker lineup, and that the final keynote will be given by Greg Stein, an engineering manager wirh Google's Blogger group, who will be speaking on "Python at Google" Greg is also known to many in the open source world as the chairman of the Apache Foundation, and he is a significant contributor to Subversion, WebDAV and Python. With the opening keynote from a Microsoft speaker, the second keynote from Guido van Rossum (the inventor of Python) and the last keynote from Google, PyCon is beginning to demonstrate just how significant Python has become in the modern world of software and Internet services. I hope you will join me in DC from March 23-25, and possibly attend the four-day sprint being held immediately before the conference. Pre- conference registration is available via http://www.python.org//pycon/2005/register.html This is going to be a great opportunity for all those with an interest in Python to see just how far the language has come. regards Steve Holden Chairman, PyCON DC 2005 -- PyCon DC 2005: The third Python Community Conference http://www.pycon.org/ http://www.python.org/pycon/ The scoop on Python implementations and applications

1 0

RE: [Python-Dev] Re: [Python Dev] PEP 309
by Michael Chermside 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

Nick Coghlan writes: > I'm actually half-tempted to suggest that [map, filter and reduce] should be > aliased in the functional module for 2.5 (in addition to being in builtins - ala > the contents of the exceptions module). Well, I think it's a good idea, so I'll formally propose it! Let's alias map, filter, and reduce into the functional module now that it exists. This doesn't create any need or pressure to remove these as builtins, but it does contemplate a day when we might choose to make such a choice. -- Michael Chermside

2 1

a bunch of Patch reviews
by Irmen de Jong 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

Hello I've looked at one bug and a bunch of patches and added a comment to them: (bug) [ 1102649 ] pickle files should be opened in binary mode Added a comment about a possible different solution [ 946207 ] Non-blocking Socket Server Useless, what are the mixins for? Recommend close [ 756021 ] Allow socket.inet_aton('255.255.255.255') on Windows Looks good but added suggestion about when to test for special case [ 740827 ] add urldecode() method to urllib I think it's better to group these things into urlparse [ 579435 ] Shadow Password Support Module Would be nice to have, I recently just couldn't do the user authentication that I wanted: based on the users' unix passwords [ 1093468 ] socket leak in SocketServer Trivial and looks harmless, but don't the sockets get garbage collected once the request is done? [ 1049151 ] adding bool support to xdrlib.py Simple patch and 2.4 is out now, so... It would be nice if somebody could have a look at my own patches or help me a bit with them: [ 1102879 ] Fix for 926423: socket timeouts + Ctrl-C don't play nice [ 1103213 ] Adding the missing socket.recvall() method [ 1103350 ] send/recv SEGMENT_SIZE should be used more in socketmodule [ 1062014 ] fix for 764437 AF_UNIX socket special linux socket names [ 1062060 ] fix for 1016880 urllib.urlretrieve silently truncates dwnld Some of them come from the last Python Bug Day, see http://www.python.org/moin/PythonBugDayStatus Thank you ! Regards, --Irmen de Jong

6 18

Patch Reviewing
by Reinhold Birkenfeld 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

Hello, just felt a little bored and tried to review a few (no-brainer) patches. Here are the results: * Patch #1051395 Minor fix in Lib/locale.py: Docs say that function _parse_localename returns a tuple; but for one codepath it returns a list. Patch fixes this by adding tuple(), recommending apply. * Patch #1046831 Minor fix in Lib/distutils/sysconfig.py: it defines a function to retrieve the Python version but does not use it everywhere; Patch fixes this, recommending apply. * Patch #751031 Adds recognizing JPEG-EXIF files (produced by digicams) to imghdr.py. Recommending apply. * Patch #712317 Fixes URL parsing in urlparse for URLs such as http://foo?bar. Splits at '?', so assigns 'foo' to netloc and 'bar' to query instead of assigning 'foo?bar' to netloc. Recommending apply. regards, Reinhold

3 2

Re: python-dev Summary for 2005-01-16 through 2005-01-31
by Steve Holden 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Michele Simionato wrote [on c.l.py]: > Brett Cannon: [... python-dev summary ... boilerplate change ...] > > +1 for this idea. The summary looks much better now :) > Keep the good work going, > Sorry, but i have to disagree. I hope you won't take this reply personally, Michele, since it's directed to all c.l.py readers, as well as (particularly) at Python users who [unlike you] are mostly take and rather less give. Although this is inherently the nature of open source, in certain cases this can be taken too far. I have a long history of doing things, and an equally long history giving up doing them. This stems from a personal belief that organic growth (IMHO the healthiest type) will only be engendered by variety. I was the Chairman of the Sun UK User Group once. When I was elected I said I would serve for two years, and when I resigned after two years many people said to me "Steve, please reconsider your decision". I observed, perhaps somewhat cynically, that most of the people who said this were motivated by the wish to avoid the pain of locating and electing a new chairman. Guess what ... when I refused to reconsider they found a new chairman, who was at least as good as me (I thought he was better), and life carried on. If you were to ask a member of the Sun UK User Group now the name of their second chairman I'd be very surprised if they had any idea who the hell Steve Holden was. (Historical note: the first chairman was Chris Brown, and nobody will remember him either). Now, the reason for this specific rant is this: I can tell a cry for help when I see one. Brett has done a magnificent job of providing python-dev summaries since Andrew decided he'd had enough, and he is to be congratulated for it. I managed to offload another bunch of work on him (moderation of various troublesome PyCon mailing lists), but at least I was able to recompense him by letting him into PyCon for nothing. I can say this because I am confident that nobody will even think of suggesting that Brett's contribution to the Python community doesn't entitle him to a free place at PyCon. I suspect most readers of this list would feel the same about Guido (I certainly hope so, because he too is a free-loader this year :-). I would actually like a free place at PyCon to represent recognition of significant contributions to the Python community, but there is a conflict here with another of my goals (raising funds for the PSF). But frankly, I think it's time someone else stood up and said "Brett, you've done a magnificent job. Hesitant though I am about replacing you, I would like to volunteer for the task, because only when you are free from the burden of writing the python-dev summaries will we see what else you are capable of". Since I am at best an intermittent reader of python-dev I can say this without fear of having to stand up myself. Oops, I'm rambling. I guess what I'm trying to say boils down to "Ask not what the Python community can do for you ...", and anyone who can't provide the remainder of the analogy is too young to consider themselves a victim of this post, and can claim a free ticket until they are old enough ti understand what history is. I like to think that although I don't make frequent checkins to the code base I do *something* to engender the Python community spirit (though I don't consider my own interpretation of that spirit to uniquely define it), and I'm damned sure Brett has done his share. It would be great if just a *few* more people who are currently consuming the fruits of our labors would stop sitting on the sidelines shouting "great job!" and roll their sleeves up. I hope I'll be able to put these remarks in a corporate context for PyCon - which astute readers will have noticed will be my last PyCon as chairman. I am happy to say that Andrew Kuchling has finally admitted his lust for power and confirmed that he is prepared to act as chairman for 2006, and I wish him well. More later one-more-thing-given-up-ly y'rs - steve

4 3

assigning a custom mapping type to __dict__
by Steven Bethard 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

I think the behavior when supplying a custom mapping type to __dict__ is a little confusing. I'd like to supply a patch, but I'm not sure what the preferred solution is. Let me explain the problem a little first. For a custom mapping type that does not inherit from dict, Python gives a nice error message when it's assigned to __dict__: py> class M(object): ... def __getitem__(self, key): ... return 42 ... py> class O(object): ... pass ... py> o = O() py> o.__dict__ = M() Traceback (most recent call last): File "<interactive input>", line 1, in ? TypeError: __dict__ must be set to a dictionary However, a subclass of dict will still be accepted, but has some confusing behavior -- a redefined __getitem__ is not actually invoked: py> class M(dict): ... def __getitem__(self, key): ... return 42 ... py> class O(object): ... pass ... py> o = O() py> o.__dict__ = M() py> o.a Traceback (most recent call last): File "<interactive input>", line 1, in ? AttributeError: 'O' object has no attribute 'a' By overriding __getattribute__ in the object's class, you can get the expected behavior: py> class M(dict): ... def __getitem__(self, key): ... return 42 ... py> class O(object): ... def __getattribute__(self, name): ... getattribute = super(O, self).__getattribute__ ... if not name.startswith('__') or not name.endswith('__'): ... try: ... return getattribute('__dict__')[name] ... except KeyError: ... raise AttributeError(name) ... return getattribute(name) ... py> o = O() py> o.__dict__ = M() py> o.a 42 py> o.a = 1 py> o.a 42 So, I see this as a problem, mainly because an error (assiging a mapping to __dict__ and expecting its methods to be called) passes silently. I guess the first question is, do others agree this is also an problem? If so, I see a few solutions, and I'd like some input on which is most desirable. (1) Raise an exception when a subclass of dict is assigned to __dict__. This is probably the simplest solution (I assume it's basically just changing a PyDict_Check to a PyDict_CheckExact), and it keeps the error from passing silently, but it is backwards-incompatible. (Classes like my last versions of M and O above will be broken.) (2) Allow sublcasses of dict to be assigned to __dict__, but change the implementation to call the subclass methods, not the dict methods. I don't know exactly what needs to be changed to make this work. (3) Allow any mapping type to be assigned to __dict__, and change the implementation to use Py_Mapping* calls instead. I don't know the implementation well enough to know the consequences of the last two, so I'm hoping for some feedback here. Thanks! Steve -- You can wordify anything if you just verb it. --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy

1 0

2.4.1c1 March 10th, 2.4.1 March 17th
by Anthony Baxter 01 Mar '05

01 Mar '05

Ok - Fred and Martin and I will be cutting 2.4.1c1 on March 10th, and (assuming no problems) 2.4.1 on March 17th. Apologies for the delay - my time's been all consumed lately with doing lighting and sound design for a show. (Any Melbournites who're interested, we're putting on Michael Palin's play "The Weekend" from next Thursday - see www.stagtheatre.org for more details </plug>) -- Anthony Baxter <anthony(a)interlink.com.au> It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

1 0

RE: [Python-Dev] Legacy bugs on SF
by Batista, Facundo 01 Mar '05

01 Mar '05

[Reinhold Birkenfeld] #- The month is over now, so what to do with them? The "month" is like a minimum time limit. I got separated and moved to my parent house. I still don't have internet connection, so I have this work a bit overdue. But I'll continue it, and eventually will reach the bugs where I alerted, and will close it, and will review the others (be aware that I'm not alerting every bug, I try to check every one when possible to see if it's still a bug, if was fixed, if the context changed to it has no sense any more, etc...). #- Note that there are other very old bugs, e.g. in the #- "Platform-specific" #- group, which I think may be closed too. Ok. . Facundo Bitácora De Vuelo: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog PyAr - Python Argentina: http://pyar.decode.com.ar/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADVERTENCIA. La información contenida en este mensaje y cualquier archivo anexo al mismo, son para uso exclusivo del destinatario y pueden contener información confidencial o propietaria, cuya divulgación es sancionada por la ley. Si Ud. No es uno de los destinatarios consignados o la persona responsable de hacer llegar este mensaje a los destinatarios consignados, no está autorizado a divulgar, copiar, distribuir o retener información (o parte de ella) contenida en este mensaje. Por favor notifíquenos respondiendo al remitente, borre el mensaje original y borre las copias (impresas o grabadas en cualquier medio magnético) que pueda haber realizado del mismo. Todas las opiniones contenidas en este mail son propias del autor del mensaje y no necesariamente coinciden con las de Telefónica Comunicaciones Personales S.A. o alguna empresa asociada. Los mensajes electrónicos pueden ser alterados, motivo por el cual Telefónica Comunicaciones Personales S.A. no aceptará ninguna obligación cualquiera sea el resultante de este mensaje. Muchas Gracias.

1 0

Legacy bugs on SF
by Reinhold Birkenfeld 01 Mar '05

01 Mar '05

Hello, still in 2004, this comment was added to old bugs with groups Python2.*: """ Please, could you verify if this problem persists in Python 2.3.4 or 2.4? If yes, in which version? Can you provide a test case? If the problem is solved, from which version? Note that if you fail to answer in one month, I'll close this bug as "Won't fix". """ The month is over now, so what to do with them? Note that there are other very old bugs, e.g. in the "Platform-specific" group, which I think may be closed too. Reinhold -- Mail address is perfectly valid!

1 0

Re: Moving towards Python 3.0 (was Re: Speed up
by Cameron Laird 01 Mar '05

01 Mar '05

functioncalls) Reply-To: claird-dated-1109937599.27a97c(a)phaseit.net A month ago, Nathan Binkert wrote: > > Wouldn't it be nicer to have a facility that let you send messages > > between processes and manage concurrency properly instead? You'll > > need > > most of this anyway to do multithreading sanely, and the benefit to > > the > > multiple process model is that you can scale to multiple machines, not > > just processors. For brokering data between processes on the same > > machine, you can use mapped memory if you can't afford to copy it > > around, which gives you basically all the benefits of threads with > > fewer pitfalls. > > I don't think this is an answered problem. There are plenty of > researchers on both sides of this fence. It is not been proven at all > that threads are a bad model. > > http://capriccio.cs.berkeley.edu/pubs/threads-hotos-2003.pdf or even > http://www.python.org/~jeremy/weblog/030912.html > I want to add: me, too. That is, while all my instincts incline toward message-passing and "bulkier" concurrency which emphasizes clusters more than multiprocessors, what's most certain to me is that we--computing people, academics, all of us together--really don't know yet what the right answers are. *My* personal desire: Python as a healthy industrial-strength language strong enough to support such radical experiments as Stackless, PyPy, a sophisticated multithreader, and so on. It has been; I expect it will be. Cameron Laird http://www.phaseit.net Phaseit, Inc. claird(a)phaseit.net +1 281 996 8546 FAX

1 0