Mailman 3 December 2006 - Python-Dev

Open CPython VM for type information
by Kay Schluehr 17 Dec '06

17 Dec '06

Dear Python developers, while the JVM is opened to support dynamically typed languages [1] I wonder if the CPyVM could not show more openness to statically typed languages? Hereby I don't think that much about arbitrary languages for the CPyVM but sublanguages like RPython which are "static enough" to be compilable into extension modules [2]. However creating C extension modules from Python code is not really the standard way I do think Python source should be handled. Instead I think about a more direct VM support like the JVM does, that provides opcodes like iload, fstore etc. Besides this I don't expect one canonical approach for these type information to be feeded into the CPyVM. There are type inferencer like rtyper for PyPy, Psycos continous bytecode monitoring and also other approaches are possible that use type feedback. Finally optional type declarations are also an issue; however I would like to see language design discussions being separated ( -> Python 3000 ) and focus on general APIs for compiler extensions / plugs that deal with type information ( the architecture ) and VM implementation issues. Thanks, Kay [1] http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=292 [2] http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/extcompiler.html

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Weekly Python Patch/Bug Summary
by Kurt B. Kaiser 15 Dec '06

15 Dec '06

Patch / Bug Summary ___________________ Patches : 414 open ( +1) / 3498 closed ( +9) / 3912 total (+10) Bugs : 949 open ( +6) / 6376 closed (+12) / 7325 total (+18) RFE : 247 open ( +1) / 245 closed ( +1) / 492 total ( +2) New / Reopened Patches ______________________ C99 _Bool support for struct (2006-12-07) http://python.org/sf/1610575 opened by David Remahl BSD version of ctypes.util.find_library (2006-12-07) http://python.org/sf/1610795 opened by Martin Kammerhofer whitespace in `svnversion .` (2006-10-15) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1577756 reopened by schmaller Enhanced tabbed pane widget (2006-12-10) http://python.org/sf/1612746 opened by Tal Einat encoding directive -- more examples (2006-12-11) http://python.org/sf/1613352 opened by Jim Jewett Write mode option for fileinput module. (2006-12-11) http://python.org/sf/1613500 opened by Anthony Roy POSIX capabilities support (2006-12-13) http://python.org/sf/1615158 opened by Matt Kern Creating dicts for dict subclasses (2006-12-14) http://python.org/sf/1615701 opened by Walter Dörwald BZ2File.seek() fails for large files (2006-12-14) http://python.org/sf/1615868 opened by Lars Gustäbel Cached globals+builtins lookup optimization (2006-12-15) http://python.org/sf/1616125 opened by Andrea Griffini Patches Closed ______________ whitespace in `svnversion .` (2006-10-15) http://python.org/sf/1577756 closed by gbrandl traceback on exit if syslog handler fails to initialize (2006-12-05) http://python.org/sf/1609407 closed by vsajip Race condition in os.makedirs (2006-12-04) http://python.org/sf/1608579 closed by gbrandl Prevent race condition in os.makedirs (2005-07-17) http://python.org/sf/1239890 closed by gbrandl os.makedirs - robust against partial path (2005-10-05) http://python.org/sf/1314067 closed by gbrandl modsupport does not use va_copy when available (2003-12-11) http://python.org/sf/858318 closed by sf-robot acknowledge signals in non-main threads (2004-12-21) http://python.org/sf/1088832 closed by loewis Patch for bug 999042. (2004-12-23) http://python.org/sf/1090482 closed by loewis socket leak in SocketServer (2004-12-30) http://python.org/sf/1093468 closed by loewis mailbox.py: check that os.fsync is available before using it (2006-11-19) http://python.org/sf/1599256 closed by akuchling New / Reopened Bugs ___________________ GUI for Python 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 is very sluggish (2006-12-06) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1610485 reopened by g4rlik cgi.py multipart/form-data (2006-12-07) http://python.org/sf/1610654 opened by Chui Tey \b in unicode regex gives strange results (2006-12-07) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1611131 opened by akaihola os.path.exists("file/") failure on Solaris 9 (2006-12-07) http://python.org/sf/1611154 opened by Paul Eggert can't pickle NAN's in binary mode (2006-12-08) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1611753 opened by Wayne Christopher sndhdr.what() does not recognize wav file (2006-12-09) http://python.org/sf/1611944 reopened by klankschap sndhdr.what() does not recognize wav file (2006-12-09) http://python.org/sf/1611944 opened by Floris van Manen builtin compile() doc needs PyCF_DONT_IMPLY_DEDENT (2006-12-09) http://python.org/sf/1612012 opened by Anthony Baxter Dictionary ordering docs are too unclear of dangers (2006-12-09) http://python.org/sf/1612113 opened by Calvin Spealman webchecker/urllib chokes on 404 pages (2006-12-10) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1612729 opened by Fredrik Lundh lambda tuple parameter bus error (2006-12-11) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1613059 opened by Bruce Cropley str.split creates new string even if pattern not found (2006-12-11) http://python.org/sf/1613130 opened by Antoine Pitrou pydoc info for a package doesn't list all package contents (2006-12-11) http://python.org/sf/1613479 opened by Nishkar Grover xmlrpclib ServerProxy uses old httplib interface (2006-12-12) http://python.org/sf/1613573 opened by Matt Brown recv_into not documented (2006-12-11) http://python.org/sf/1613651 opened by Eric Huss AttributesImpl does not implement __contains__ on Linux (2006-12-13) http://python.org/sf/1614387 opened by Jason Briggs dict throwing inaccurate KeyError on small tuple keys (2006-12-13) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/1614429 opened by toidinamai python-logging compatability with Zope. (2006-12-13) http://python.org/sf/1614460 opened by Simon Hookway tempile.TemporaryFile differences between linux and windows (2006-12-13) http://python.org/sf/1615275 opened by hirzel subprocess doesn't handle SIGPIPE (2006-12-14) http://python.org/sf/1615376 opened by Mark Diekhans IA64/AMD64/x64 confusion (2006-12-14) http://python.org/sf/1616109 opened by Sidnei da Silva Bugs Closed ___________ GUI for Python 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 is very sluggish (2006-12-06) http://python.org/sf/1610485 closed by kbk \b in unicode regex gives strange results (2006-12-07) http://python.org/sf/1611131 deleted by akaihola can't pickle NAN's in binary mode (2006-12-08) http://python.org/sf/1611753 closed by mwh race in os.makedirs() (2005-06-18) http://python.org/sf/1223238 closed by gbrandl simple moves freeze IDLE (2006-10-05) http://python.org/sf/1571112 closed by kbk webchecker/urllib chokes on 404 pages (2006-12-10) http://python.org/sf/1612729 closed by gbrandl lambda tuple parameter bus error (2006-12-11) http://python.org/sf/1613059 closed by gbrandl logger.config problems with comma separated lists (2006-06-09) http://python.org/sf/1503765 closed by vsajip mailbox: Maildir.get_folder does not inherit factory (2006-11-20) http://python.org/sf/1600152 closed by akuchling dict throwing inaccurate KeyError on small tuple keys (2006-12-12) http://python.org/sf/1614429 closed by rhettinger New / Reopened RFE __________________ Py_DEBUG (2006-12-09) http://python.org/sf/1612190 opened by nitro Class Browser doesn't show internal classes (2006-12-09) http://python.org/sf/1612262 opened by Tal Einat RFE Closed __________ "".translate() docs should mention string.maketrans() (2006-11-08) http://python.org/sf/1592899 closed by gbrandl

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Creating dicts from dict subclasses
by Walter Dörwald 14 Dec '06

14 Dec '06

I tried to reimplement weakref.WeakValueDictionary as a subclass of dict. The test passes except for one problem: To compare results test_weakref.py converts a weakdict to a real dict via dict(weakdict). This no longer works because PyDict_Merge() does a PyDict_Check() on the argument and then ignores all overwritten methods. (The old version worked because UserDict.UserDict was used). The simplest solution is to replace the PyDict_Check() call with PyDict_CheckExact(), but this might slow things down too much, because the fallback code basically does: for key in iter(arg.keys()): self[key] = arg.__getitem__(key) Why can't we use: for key in iter(arg): self[key] = arg.__getitem__(key) instead? Servus, Walter

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Adding resume (206) support to urllib(2)
by Daniel Watkins 14 Dec '06

14 Dec '06

Hi guys, I've just been putting together a podcasting doodad and have included resuming support in it. Is this something that's already in the pipeline or should I abstract it out to urllib and submit a patch? Dan

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Re: [Python-Dev] [Python-checkins] MSI being downloaded 10x morethan all other files?!
by Terry Jones 14 Dec '06

14 Dec '06

>>>>> "Guido" == Guido van Rossum <guido(a)python.org> writes: Guido> And I just found out (after everyone else probably :-) that YouTube Guido> is almost entirely written in Python. (And now I can rub shoulders Guido> with the developers since they're all Googlers now... :-) Are any other details available? I'm mainly curious to know if they were using Twisted. Terry

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MSI being downloaded 10x more than all other files?!
by Guido van Rossum 13 Dec '06

13 Dec '06

I looked through the python.org web stats (as I usually do when preparing for a keynote) and discovered that /ftp/python/2.5/python-2.5.msi is by far the top download -- 271,971 hits, more than 5x the next one, /ftp/python/2.5/Python-2.5.tgz (47,898 hits). Are these numbers real? (The byte counts suggest they are.) What could cause this dramatic popularity of Python on Windows? Does some vendor have an auto-install hook that installs Python whenever someone opens up their new computer? Or have we just hit the jackpot? -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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Re: [Python-Dev] [Python-checkins] MSI being downloaded 10x more than all other files?!
by glyph＠divmod.com 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

On 11:17 pm, guido(a)python.org wrote: >On 12/11/06, Jim Jewett <jimjjewett(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On 12/8/06, Guido van Rossum <guido(a)python.org> wrote: >> > /ftp/python/2.5/python-2.5.msi is by far the top download -- 271,971 >> > hits, more than 5x the next one, /ftp/python/2.5/Python-2.5.tgz >> > (47,898 hits). Are these numbers real? >> >> Why wouldn't it be? > >Just because in the past the ratio of downloads for a particular >version was always about 70% Windows vs. 30% source. Now it seems >closer to 90/10. Personally speaking, since switching to Ubuntu, I've been so happy with the speed of releases and the quality of packaged Python that I haven't downloaded a source release from python.org in over a year. If I need packages, they're already installed. If I need source from a release, I 'apt-get source' to conveniently install it from a (very fast) ubuntu mirror. When I need something outside the Ubuntu release structure, it's typically an SVN trunk checkout, not a release tarball. I don't know what Ubuntu's impact in the general user community has been, but it seems that the vast majority of python developers I interact with on a regular basis have switched. I wouldn't be surprised if this were a major part of the impact.

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Looking for new Python-Dev Summarizers
by Steven Bethard 11 Dec '06

11 Dec '06

It's been my pleasure to write the Python-Dev Summaries for the last year and a half -- 40 summaries all told, 8 of those with Tim Lesher and 23 with Tony Meyer. It's really been an incredible learning experience, both in how the Python development process works, and in how Python as a community interacts. As I'm now coming up on the last semester of so of my Ph.D., I need to make some more time to get research done, and so I'm looking to retire from the summaries. Hence, I'm soliciting for a good replacement (or a few) who would be willing to pick up the job. The job takes a few hours about once every two weeks. I have scripts to automate most of the grunt work (e.g. collecting the threads from mail.python.org and laying out the summary as necessary for the website), so the job is pretty much just writing a ReST-formatted paragraph or two on each topic. If you've been reading Python-Dev for a while, and you'd like to get involved, this is a great place to start - I can guarantee you'll learn a lot from it. Please drop me an email if you're interested! Thanks, Steve -- I'm not *in*-sane. Indeed, I am so far *out* of sane that you appear a tiny blip on the distant coast of sanity. --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy

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fileinput module tests
by Anthony Roy 10 Dec '06

10 Dec '06

Hi all, I have a patch for the fileinput.FileInput class, adding a parameter to the __init__ method called write_mode in order to specify the write mode when using the class with the inplace parameter set to True. Before I submit the patch, I've added a test to the test module, and noticed that the module is pretty messy, with half of the tests being run in the module body, and the rest in a large function body. I propose to refactor the module, moving the tests into a unittest.TestCase subclass (essentially unchanged, bar changing verify calls to self.assert_ calls, raise TestFailed(...) to self.fail(...) etc). I think this will add clarity and modularity to the tests, and bring them into line with the unittest based test suite used by the test_file module amongst others (which I'm guessing are substantially more up to date than test_fileinput). Any thought? Cheers, -- Ant...

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Windows SDK
by Albert Strasheim 10 Dec '06

10 Dec '06

Hello all (A quick google of the python-dev archive didn't turn up any discussions on this topic. If this has already been discussed, please accept my humble apologies.) As part of the Windows Vista release, Microsoft have created the "Windows SDK" that looks like Platform SDK on steroids. It includes 32-bit and 64-bit libraries and compilers, debugging tools, etc. and supports Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. Check the Microsoft Windows SDK Blog for more info: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowssdk/ Go here for links to ISO and web install: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowssdk/archive/2006/11/08/windows-sdk-for-windows… I'm only guessing here, but I think the Windows SDK is probably going to become the de facto standard for building software on Windows in the absence of Visual Studio. Has anybody else looked at the Windows SDK yet? Any thoughts on what needs to be done with distutils so that the Windows SDK can be supported in Python 2.6? Cheers, Albert Strasheim

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