python-dev summary, 2001-03-15 - 2001-03-29

[Michael Hudson]

 This is a summary of traffic on the python-dev mailing list between
 Mar 15 and Mar 28 (inclusive) 2001.  It is intended to inform the
 wider Python community of ongoing developments.  To comment, just
 post to python-list at python.org or comp.lang.python in the usual
 way. Give your posting a meaningful subject line, and if it's about a
 PEP, include the PEP number (e.g. Subject: PEP 201 - Lockstep
 iteration) All python-dev members are interested in seeing ideas
 discussed by the community, so don't hesitate to take a stance on a
 PEP if you have an opinion.

 This is the fourth summary written by Michael Hudson.
 Summaries are archived at:

  <http://starship.python.net/crew/mwh/summaries/>

   Posting distribution (with apologies to mbm)

   Number of articles in summary: 410

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 Bug-fixing for 2.1 remained a priority for python-dev this fortnight
 which saw the release of 2.1b2 last Friday.


    * Python 2.0.1 *

 Aahz posted his first draft of PEP 6, outlining the process by which
 maintenance releases of Python should be made.

  <http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0006.html>

 Moshe Zadka has volunteered to be the "Patch Czar" for Python 2.0.1.

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-March/013952.html>

 I'm sure we can all join in the thanks due to Moshe for taking up
 this tedious but valuable job!


    * Simple Generator implementations *

 Neil Schemenauer posted links to a couple of "simple" implementations
 of generators (a.k.a. resumable functions) that do not depend on the
 stackless changes going in.

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-March/013648.html>
  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-March/013666.html>

 These implementations have the advantage that they might be
 applicable to Jython, something that sadly cannot be said of
 stackless.
 

    * portable file-system stuff *

 The longest thread of the summary period started off with a request
 for a portable way to find out free disk space:

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-March/013706.html>

 After a slightly acrimonious debate about the nature of Python
 development, /F produced a patch that implements partial support for
 os.statvfs on Windows:

  <http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=410547&group_id=5470&atid=305470>

 which can be used to extract such information.

 A side-product of this discussion was the observation that although
 Python has a module that does some file manipulation, shutil, it is
 far from being as portable as it might be - in particular it fails
 miserably on the Mac where it ignores resource forks.  Greg Ward then
 pointed out that he had to implement cross-platform file copying for
 the distutils

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-March/013962.html>

 so perhaps all that needs to be done is for this stuff to be moved
 into the core.  It seems very unlikely there will be much movement
 here before 2.2.