Mailman 3 April 2010 - Python-Dev

Re: [Python-Dev] [PEP 3148] futures - execute computations asynchronously
by P.J. Eby 02 May '10

02 May '10

At 10:59 AM 3/7/2010 -0800, Jeffrey Yasskin wrote: >So is it that you just don't like the idea of blocking, and want to >stop anything that relies on it from getting into the standard library? Um, no. As I said before, call it a "parallel task queue" or "parallel task manager" or something to that general effect and I'm on board. It may not be in the Zen of Python, but ISTM that names should generally follow use cases. It is something of a corollary to "one obvious way to do it", in that if you see something whose name matches what you want to do, then it should be obvious that that's the way in question. ;-) The use cases for "parallel task queues", however, are a subset of those for "futures" in the general case. Since the proposed module addresses most of the former but very little of the latter, calling it futures is inappropriate. Specifically, it's: 1. Confusing to people who don't know what futures are (see e.g R.D. Murray's post), and 2. Underpowered for people who expect/want a more fully-featured futures system along the lines of E or Deferreds. It seems that the only people for whom it's an intuitively correct description are people who've only had experience with more limited futures models (like Java's). However, these people should not have a problem understanding the notion of parallel task queueing or task management, so changing the name isn't really a loss for them, and it's a gain for everybody else. > Given the set_result and set_exception methods, it's pretty > straightforward to fill in the value of a future from something > that isn't purely computational. Those are described as "internal" methods in the PEP; by contrast, the Deferred equivalents are part of the public API. > Given a way to register "on-done" callbacks with the future, it > would be straightforward to wait for a future without blocking, too. Yes, and with a few more additions besides that one, you might be on the way to an actual competitor for Deferreds. For example: retry support, chaining, logging, API for transparent result processing, coroutine support, co-ordination tools like locks, sempaphores and queues, etc. These are all things you would very likely want or need if you actually wanted to write a program using futures as *your main computational model*, vs. just needing to toss out some parallel tasks in a primarily synchronous program. Of course, Deferreds are indeed overkill if all you're ever going to want is a few parallel tasks, unless you're already skilled in using Twisted or some wrapper for it. So, I totally support having a simple task queue in the stdlib, as there are definitely times I would've used such a thing for a quick script, if it were available. However, I've *also* had use cases for using futures as a computational model, and so that's what I originally thought this PEP was about. After the use cases were clarified, though, it seems to me that *calling* it futures is a bad idea, because it's really just a nice task queuing system. I'm +1 on adding a nice task queuing system, -1 on calling it by any other name. ;-)

7 11

patch for review: __import__ documentation
by Chris Jerdonek 01 May '10

01 May '10

Here is another patch for review: http://bugs.python.org/issue8370 This is a trivial fix to the 2.6 and 2.7 documentation. Thanks, --Chris

4 9

Summary of Python tracker Issues
by Python tracker 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

ACTIVITY SUMMARY (2010-04-23 - 2010-04-30) Python tracker at http://bugs.python.org/ To view or respond to any of the issues listed below, click on the issue number. Do NOT respond to this message. 2638 open (+41) / 17759 closed (+27) / 20397 total (+68) Open issues with patches: 1081 Average duration of open issues: 724 days. Median duration of open issues: 494 days. Open Issues Breakdown open 2620 (+41) languishing 10 ( +0) pending 7 ( +0) Issues Created Or Reopened (71) _______________________________ "Report bug" links 2010-04-24 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue2823 reopened techtonik Silence DeprecationWarning by default 2010-04-25 http://bugs.python.org/issue7319 reopened benjamin.peterson patch Small mistake in tutorial web page 2010-04-23 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8511 created mdcowles os.execv*e(): fix formatting of the environment variables (Pyt 2010-04-23 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8512 created haypo patch subprocess: support bytes program name 2010-04-23 http://bugs.python.org/issue8513 created haypo patch Create fsencode() and fsdecode() functions in os.path 2010-04-23 http://bugs.python.org/issue8514 created haypo patch idle "Run Module" (F5) does not set __file__ variable 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8515 created dangyogi patch Speed difference between Python 2.5 and 2.6 during filling bsd 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8516 created PeterL Apple Style Guide link is broken in the "Documenting Python" c 2010-04-24 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8517 created brandon-rhodes small typo in http://docs.python.org/howto/doanddont.html 2010-04-24 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8518 created Adrián.Deccico [patch] doc: termios and ioctl reference links 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8519 created techtonik patch test doc issue 2010-04-24 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8520 created georg.brandl Allow some winreg functions to accept keyword arguments 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8521 created brian.curtin patch enhacement proposal in howto/doanddont 2010-04-24 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8522 created Adrián.Deccico patch shutil.rmtree and os.listdir cannot recover on error condition 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8523 created rubenlm easy SSL sockets do not retain the parent socket's attributes 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8524 created pitrou Small enhancement to help() 2010-04-24 http://bugs.python.org/issue8525 created robcliffe msilib doesn't support multiple CAB instances in same installe 2010-04-25 http://bugs.python.org/issue8526 created janssen easy [PEP 3147] compileall.compile_dir() called multiple times crea 2010-04-25 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8527 created Arfrever patch typo in argparse documentation 2010-04-25 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8528 created akira subclassing builtin class (str, unicode, list...) needs to ove 2010-04-25 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8529 created flox Stringlib fastsearch can read beyond the front of an array 2010-04-25 http://bugs.python.org/issue8530 created alex patch test_ascii_formatd fails if ctypes module is missing 2010-04-25 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8531 created haypo Refinements to Python 3 New GIL 2010-04-26 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8532 created dabeaz patch regrtest: use backslashreplace error handler for stdout 2010-04-26 http://bugs.python.org/issue8533 created haypo patch multiprocessing not working from egg 2010-04-26 http://bugs.python.org/issue8534 created simonsteiner patch passing optimization flags to the linker required for builds w 2010-04-26 http://bugs.python.org/issue8535 created doko patch, needs review Support new features of ZLIB 1.2.4 2010-04-26 http://bugs.python.org/issue8536 created jcea easy Add ConfigureAction to argparse 2010-04-26 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8537 created eric.smith Add ConfigureAction to argparse 2010-04-26 http://bugs.python.org/issue8538 created eric.smith Add ConfigureAction to argparse 2010-04-26 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8539 created eric.smith Make Context._clamp public in decimal module 2010-04-26 http://bugs.python.org/issue8540 created mark.dickinson Test issue 2010-04-26 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8541 created loewis Another test issue 2010-04-26 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8542 created loewis asynchat documentation issues 2010-04-27 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8543 created giampaolo.rodola i didn't get rqrd output for programme in python?(plz... help) 2010-04-27 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8544 created krishnalolla i didn't get rqrd output for programme in python?(plz... help) 2010-04-27 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8545 created krishnalolla The parameter buffering in _pyio.open doesn't work the same as 2010-04-27 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8546 created pyfex patch unittest test discovery can fail when package under test is al 2010-04-27 http://bugs.python.org/issue8547 created michael.foord Building on CygWin 1.7: PATH_MAX redefined 2010-04-27 http://bugs.python.org/issue8548 created jbinder Modules/_ssl.c: extra comma breaks build on AIX 2010-04-27 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8549 created srid patch Expose SSL contexts 2010-04-27 http://bugs.python.org/issue8550 created pitrou Start argument for str.rfind used incorrectly 2010-04-27 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8551 created dtorp msilib can't create large CAB files 2010-04-27 http://bugs.python.org/issue8552 created janssen 2to3 breaks relative imports 2010-04-28 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8553 created jyasskin patch, patch suspicious comment in msilib.py/__init__.py 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8554 created janssen tkinter doesn't see _tkinter 2010-04-28 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8555 created py.user Confusing string formatting examples 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8556 created mcjeff patch subprocess PATH semantics and portability 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8557 created dabrahams StringIO().truncate causes zero-bytes in getvalue() 2010-04-28 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8558 created hpk test_gdb: test_strings() fails with ASCII locale 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8559 created haypo patch regrtest: add a minimal "progress bar" 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8560 created haypo patch Install .exes generated with distutils to not do a CRC check 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8561 created nateman1352 hasattr(open,'newlines') example gives incorrect results from 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8562 created adamnelson [PEP 3147] compileall.compile_file() creates empty __pycache__ 2010-04-28 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8563 created Arfrever patch Update documentation on doctest/unittest2 integration 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8564 created pfein patch Always run regrtest.py with -bb 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8565 created haypo patch 2to3 should run under python 2.5 2010-04-28 http://bugs.python.org/issue8566 created jyasskin patch, patch, needs review decimal module doesn't respect precedence rules for exceptiona 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue8567 created mark.dickinson Test issue 2010-04-29 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8568 created mark.dickinson Upgrade OpenSSL in Windows builds 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue8569 created pitrou 2to3 crashes with "AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribu 2010-04-29 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue8570 created rom16384 zlib causes a SystemError when decompressing a chunk >1GB 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue8571 created ddmitriev httplib getheader() throws error instead of default 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue8572 created Walter.Woods easy Buggy _strerror in asyncore 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue8573 created q94IjzUfnNoyv4c75mMw easy transient_internet() (test_support): use socket.setdefaulttime 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue8574 created haypo patch Update/reorganize _winreg documentation 2010-04-30 http://bugs.python.org/issue8575 created brian.curtin patch, patch, needs review test_support.find_unused_port can cause socket conflicts on Wi 2010-04-30 http://bugs.python.org/issue8576 created pmoore buildbot test_distutils fails if srcdir != builddir 2010-04-30 http://bugs.python.org/issue8577 created ronaldoussoren patch PyWeakref_GetObject 2010-04-30 http://bugs.python.org/issue8578 created arigo URI parsing library 2010-04-29 http://bugs.python.org/issue1462525 reopened orsenthil patch Issues Now Closed (112) _______________________ uudecoding (uu.py) does not supprt base64, patch attached 977 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1027 tjreedy patch Carbon.CF memory management problem 960 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1155 tjreedy ssl module doesn't support non-blocking handshakes 931 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1251 pitrou patch warnings module bug: BytesWarning: str() on a bytes instance 901 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1404 loewis patch IDLE not working correctly on Windows (Py30a2/IDLE30a1) 867 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1601 loewis Execfile unable to take arguments beyond 255! 864 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1636 loewis Uses of SocketServer.BaseServer.shutdown have a race 770 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2302 pitrou patch, patch Backport parameter annotations 771 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2331 benjamin.peterson 26backport Backport PEP 3132 (extended iterable unpacking) 771 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2340 benjamin.peterson 26backport SO_REUSEADDR doesn't have the same semantics on Windows as on 753 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2550 pitrou patch, 26backport cmd.py always uses raw_input, even when another stdin is speci 752 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2571 tjreedy easy Remove carbon-specific code from binhex 731 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2715 mark.dickinson "Report bug" links 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2823 georg.brandl ssl module - should test for a wrong cert 670 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3212 pitrou patch When PyObject_CallMethod fails, refcount is incorrect 659 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3328 tjreedy "Suggest a change" link 96 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3341 georg.brandl Mac, 3.0 framework install error with fink cp 645 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3433 tjreedy case conversion problems in Turkish 627 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3536 tjreedy Provide a way to disable SSLv2 (or better yet, disable by defa 617 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3596 pitrou MacOS X framework install to non-standard directory fails 616 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3646 ronaldoussoren patch os.mknod missing on Solaris 583 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3928 jcea patch, needs review configure --with-threads on cygwin => crash on thread related 581 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3947 loewis patch [contextlib] Reverse order of locking 582 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3957 tjreedy C99 comments in Python 2.6 break build on AIX 6.1 573 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4025 r.david.murray Do not embed manifest files in *.pyd when compiling with MSVC 559 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4120 loewis patch SSL handshake fails after TCP connection in getpeername() 551 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4171 pitrou type() doesn't accept bases and dict keyword arguments 553 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4186 r.david.murray import and compile() do not treat trailing whitespace the same 540 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4262 tjreedy closing stdout in a child process on cygwin means that process 533 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4295 stutzbach ssl.SSLSocket timeout not working correctly when remote end is 450 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5103 pitrou patch ssl makefile never closes socket 435 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5238 pitrou patch Fix strftime on windows. 438 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5249 loewis patch 3.0.1 crashes in unicode path 436 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5273 loewis patch array.fromfile() fails to insert values when EOFError is raise 431 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5334 loewis patch Broken Py3.1 release build in Visual Studio 2005 423 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5407 tjreedy Failure in test_httpservers on Linux 410 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5494 tjreedy Optional extensions in setup.py 393 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5583 tarek patch Create alternative CObject API that is safe and clean 389 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5630 jcea patch _winreg.OpenKey() is documented with keyword arguments, but do 375 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5774 merwok patch, needs review test_unicode fails in wide unicode build 332 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6150 loewis filecmp.cmp can not compare two files from different OS with t 315 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6306 tjreedy httplib fails with HEAD requests to pages with "transfer-encod 313 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6312 orsenthil patch Improve bool TypeError message 292 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6453 loewis easy codecs.open on Win32 does not force binary mode 246 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6788 tjreedy OptionParser.allow_interspersed_args is undocumented 230 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6883 r.david.murray Socket error when launching IDLE 223 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6941 tjreedy test_io.py: codecs.IncrementalDecoder is sometimes None 209 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7027 haypo patch Missing uninstallation instructions for mac 201 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7107 ronaldoussoren Detect improper leading whitespace in C files for Vim 168 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7288 brett.cannon easy A number tests "crash" if python is compiled --without-threads 143 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7449 haypo patch, easy, needs review pipes.quote does not correctly escape ! 130 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7507 georg.brandl patch urllib2 request does not update content length after new add_d 54 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7540 loewis patch socket.connect() no longer works with AF_BLUETOOTH L2CAP socke 86 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7834 pitrou patch, easy Undocumented subprocess functions on Windows 81 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7838 brian.curtin patch, easy, needs review [PATCH] Drop "Computer" from "Apple Computer" in plistlib 9 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7852 ronaldoussoren patch urlparse.urlsplit mishandles novel schemes 75 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7904 tseaver Memory leak due to circular references in ssl.SSLSocket 66 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7943 pitrou patch Backport capsule object 61 days http://bugs.python.org/issue7992 jcea patch, buildbot ssl.get_server_certificate new line missing 51 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8086 pitrou patch, easy test_ftplib fails with OpenSSL 0.9.8m 44 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8108 pitrou patch, buildbot String interpolation with unicode subclass fails to call __str 45 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8128 eric.smith Incoherent error with keyword argument follow by unpacking ar 36 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8177 benjamin.peterson add unpack_archive to shutil 26 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8295 tarek HTMLparser does not handle call to handle_data when a tag cont 19 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8319 orsenthil easy improve regrtest command line help 20 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8325 r.david.murray patch, easy, needs review os.execvpe() doesn't support surrogates in env 12 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8391 haypo patch dict constructor allows invalid identifiers in **kwargs 8 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8419 benjamin.peterson patch syslog.syslog('msg') logs message with ident "python". 5 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8451 r.david.murray patch, easy, needs review tarfile creates tarballs with execute permissions set 10 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8464 lars.gustaebel patch subprocess: surrogates of the error message (Python implementa 3 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8467 haypo patch build-installer fix for setIcon when no script path specified 10 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8476 ronaldoussoren patch socket's send can raise errno 35 under OS X, which causes prob 6 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8493 mdcowles test_gdb: use utf8+surrogateescape charset? 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8495 haypo patch bsddb databases in python 2.6 are not compatible with python 2 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8504 loewis 2to3 fix_future.py removes __future__ imports, but should it? 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8505 barry Small mistake in tutorial web page 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8511 ezio.melotti os.execv*e(): fix formatting of the environment variables (Pyt 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8512 haypo patch Apple Style Guide link is broken in the "Documenting Python" c 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8517 georg.brandl small typo in http://docs.python.org/howto/doanddont.html 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8518 georg.brandl test doc issue 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8520 georg.brandl enhacement proposal in howto/doanddont 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8522 georg.brandl patch [PEP 3147] compileall.compile_dir() called multiple times crea 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8527 barry patch typo in argparse documentation 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8528 georg.brandl subclassing builtin class (str, unicode, list...) needs to ove 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8529 flox test_ascii_formatd fails if ctypes module is missing 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8531 haypo Refinements to Python 3 New GIL 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8532 pitrou patch Add ConfigureAction to argparse 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8537 eric.smith Add ConfigureAction to argparse 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8539 eric.smith Test issue 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8541 loewis Another test issue 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8542 loewis asynchat documentation issues 3 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8543 giampaolo.rodola i didn't get rqrd output for programme in python?(plz... help) 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8544 orsenthil i didn't get rqrd output for programme in python?(plz... help) 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8545 georg.brandl The parameter buffering in _pyio.open doesn't work the same as 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8546 benjamin.peterson patch Modules/_ssl.c: extra comma breaks build on AIX 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8549 pitrou patch Start argument for str.rfind used incorrectly 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8551 r.david.murray 2to3 breaks relative imports 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8553 jyasskin patch, patch tkinter doesn't see _tkinter 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8555 py.user StringIO().truncate causes zero-bytes in getvalue() 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8558 pitrou [PEP 3147] compileall.compile_file() creates empty __pycache__ 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8563 Arfrever patch Test issue 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8568 mark.dickinson 2to3 crashes with "AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribu 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue8570 benjamin.peterson cPickle does relative import 2681 days http://bugs.python.org/issue658693 tjreedy ftplib.retrbinary fails when called from retrlines callback 2510 days http://bugs.python.org/issue751758 giampaolo.rodola PyMarshal_ReadLastObjectFromFile 2483 days http://bugs.python.org/issue770280 mark.dickinson patch MacPython installer fails on UFS filesystem 2457 days http://bugs.python.org/issue785031 tjreedy Carbon.File fails if server vol is mounted after launch 2092 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1004810 tjreedy bdist_deb - Debian packager 436 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1054967 barry patch configure: refuses setgroups 1848 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1178510 tjreedy use PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer in non-interractive input 1614 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1367628 tjreedy patch test test_capi crashed -- thread.error: can't allocate lock 1470 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1473979 tjreedy Python 2.5.1 fails to build on AIX 1016 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1756343 tjreedy Top Issues Most Discussed (10) ______________________________ 28 Convoy effect with I/O bound threads and New GIL 73 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue7946 17 bdist_deb - Debian packager 436 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue1054967 15 socket's send can raise errno 35 under OS X, which causes probl 6 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue8493 14 Create fsencode() and fsdecode() functions in os.path 7 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue8514 11 test_distutils fails if srcdir != builddir 0 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue8577 11 httplib getheader() throws error instead of default 1 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue8572 9 [PEP 3147] compileall.compile_file() creates empty __pycache__ 1 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue8563 9 shutil.rmtree and os.listdir cannot recover on error conditions 6 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue8523 9 update to autoconf2.65 7 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue8510 9 datetime's comparison methods do not return NotImplemented when 66 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue8005

1 0

Fwd: Broken link to download (Mac OS X)
by webmaster＠python.org 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

Hey all, This seems to happen whenever we do a new release (we've had a couple of emails to webmaster(a)python.org about it since 2.6.5 was released). The main download page for Python has a broken link for the Mac installer (because it hasn't been built yet I assume): http://python.org/download/ The link 404s, with no explanation or alternate link - so for the casual user who wants to install Python 2.6 on Mac OS X they are sorely-out-of-luck. Not being able to provide a mac installer at the same time as other platforms is one thing (and I accept that is unavoidable), breaking the download links for Mac users for unspecified lengths of time is just bad practise. If we create a new stable release without a Mac installer can we at least provide a brief explanation and link to the *previous version* until the new version is ready? All the best, Michael -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Broken link to down Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:40:36 +0000 From: Ben Hodgson <ben(a)benhodgson.com> To: webmaster(a)python.org Hey there, In case you don't know, the link on http://www.python.org/download/ to the Python 2.6.5 Mac Installer Disk Image (http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.6.5/python-2.6.5_macosx10.3.dmg) is broken. Cheers, Ben -- Ben Hodgson http://benhodgson.com/

23 119

bug tracker permissions request
by Daniel Stutzbach 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

May I have enhanced permissions on the bug tracker, so that I can perform the following tasks? - Assign issues to myself that I plan to write a patch for - Update the Stage to "patch review" after writing a patch - Occasional bug triage My login name on the tracker is "stutzbach". I only find the time to produce patches once in awhile, but when I have the time I usually produce more than one. Assigning bugs to myself will increase my motivation to write patches, as I will feel that I've made a commitment to fixing them. -- Daniel Stutzbach, Ph.D. President, Stutzbach Enterprises, LLC <http://stutzbachenterprises.com>

7 12

array matching
by Bill Jordan 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

Hey guys, I am sorry if this is not the right list to post some questions. I have a simple question please and would appreciate some answers as I am new to Python. I have 2 D array: test = [[A,1],[B,2],[A,3][B,4]] I want to arrang this array in different arrays so each one will have what is attached to. For example I want the output: A =[1,3] and B=[2,4] Thanks, Bill

4 3

Make 'normal' the default tracker priority level
by Terry Reedy 28 Apr '10

28 Apr '10

Currently, the 'default' Priority for new tracker issues is '- no selection -'. This is, I believe, widely understood to be equivalent to 'normal'. Consequently, almost no one bothers to make a selection. This applies even to experienced people like (in the last hour) Jesus Crea (#8536), Eric Smith (*8538), and Mark Dickenson (*8540). If possible, I think 'normal' should be the default in the hox or else there should be some sort of auto replacement. Currently, there are tracker maintainers spending time doing the replacement by hand. Sean R. has even requested privileges for someone in part just so he can do so too. Such activily strikes me as silly. I think it should be made unnecessary either by improving the tracker or by being declared to be unneeded. The only time a person should set the field to change it from normal (or to reverse such a change). Terry Jan Reedy

8 18

what to do if you don't want your module in Debian
by Piotr Ożarowski 27 Apr '10

27 Apr '10

Hi, Many Python module developers do not want their work to be distributed by Debian (and probably by other Linux distributions), here's a list of hints that will help you accomplish that goal: * depend on unstable or unreleased software (even if you use it only to generate docs or do unit tests), * bundle local copies of 3rd party modules and do not send your changes upstream, never document your changes in upstream code, * break API in every release, * break ABI in every second release, * do not ship all files needed to build the extension/docs/etc. in the source tarball, * do not list required dependencies in install_requires or INSTALL/README files, * if you list them, make sure you set the minimum required version to the one released yesterday, even if module works fine with version released 2 years ago, * create your own versioning schema (do not follow PEP-0386!), change it from time to time, * hardcode paths in the code and do it in as many places as you can (add new ones every few releases, that will teach them to not patch your code), * ignore FHS (you're using Windows after all); use __file__ whenever you can, * make sure there's nothing about license in LICENSE file or in file headers, * if you have some free time, create your own license, avoid BSD/MIT/(L)GPL, * if you use GPL, do not include full content of the license in the tarball, * release different tarballs with the same version number, * use waf as build-system, * release a new version without testing it with your own unit tests first to ensure that it will fail when your favourite Debian Developer tries to build it ;-) [debian-python(a)l.d.o BCCed] -- Piotr Ożarowski Debian GNU/Linux Developer www.ozarowski.pl www.griffith.cc www.debian.org GPG Fingerprint: 1D2F A898 58DA AF62 1786 2DF7 AEF6 F1A2 A745 7645

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Drop OS/2 support?
by Victor Stinner 27 Apr '10

27 Apr '10

Hi, Python contains code specific to OS/2 (eg. see Modules/posixmodule.c). I read in Wikipedia that IBM has discontinued OS/2 support in 2005. Do we still support OS/2 or not? I'm asking because I'm working on a patch modifying OS2 specific code, but I'm unable to compile nor test my changes. And on IRC we told me that nobody knows/uses OS/2. If we support OS/2, we need a buildbot. My patch: http://bugs.python.org/issue8391 (os.execvpe() doesn't support surrogates in env). -- Victor Stinner http://www.haypocalc.com/

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argparse suggestion
by Neal Becker 26 Apr '10

26 Apr '10

steven.bethard(a)gmail.com made a very nice module for me to enhance argparse called argparse_bool.py, which contains ConfigureAction. This will allow a boolean value to be set very like the gnu configure style: --foo --with-foo --without-foo --no-foo --foo=yes --foo=no I've been happily using it, and I think it would be of sufficient general interest to include it with the standard library.

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