From kragen@pobox.com Tue May 14 12:09:33 2002 From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 07:09:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Python resources for this week Message-ID: <20020514110933.08DABBDC9@panacea.canonical.org> I wrote these for another destination; thought I'd post them here too. QOTW: What RedHat admin tool uses rand?!?!?!? And doesn't that explain a lot... "You have chosen to install a new printer. You roll a 1d20... You get a 1. *CRITICAL FAILURE* Your home directory is now being deleted." -- Jeremy Bowers New software releases for developers: PythonCard, a cross-platform application development framework for use by everybody, built on wxPython, released prototype version 0.6.6 (containing 30 sample applications and a new source code editor) on 2002-05-09: http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/SourceForge/14884/0/8623392/ PyGTK and Gnome-Python, the Python bindings to the GTK GUI widget library and the GNOME desktop library, released version 1.99.10, for GTK/GNOME 2.0, on 2002-05-14: http://www.daa.com.au/pipermail/pygtk/2002-May/002787.html PyQt, the Python bindings for the Qt GUI toolkit (which work even on the Zaurus), released version 3.2.2 on 2002-05-12: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/ Python-SIP, a tool that makes it easy to create Python bindings for C++ libraries (much like SWIG), and which is used to build PyQt and PyKDE, released version 3.2.3, a bug-fix release, on 2002-05-13: http://mats.gmd.de/pipermail/pykde/2002-May/002796.html New software releases for XML developers: Gnosis Utils, a collection of utility Python modules including, among other things, a lot of XML processing utilities, released version 1.0 on 2002-05-09: http://www.gnosis.cx/download/ pyRXP, an XML parser that builds a lightweight tree of tuples instead of a heavyweight DOM tree and is thus an order of magnitude faster than most other Python XML parsers, released version 0.7 on 2002-05-09: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1020975316.11461.python-list%40python.org http://www.reportlab.com/xml/pyrxp.html New server-side web software releases: MoinMoin, a WikiWikiWeb system in Python, has finally released version 1.0 after nearly two years of development, on 2002-05-09: http://moin.sourceforge.net/ Python Community Server is an alpha-quality free reimplementation of Userland Software's Radio Community Server; version 0.04 was released on 2002-05-11: http://pycs.sourceforge.net/ Plone, a WWW content management system that runs on Zope and CMF, released version 0.9.9 on 2002-05-13: http://plone.org/ Python Web Objects, or pwo, another system that lets you embed Python code into an HTML template, released version 0.61b on 2002-05-11: http://jamwt.com/pwo/ Other new software releases: Gadfly, the in-memory pure-Python SQL relational database, is finally being worked on again by Richard Jones; a prerelease of version 1.0.0 was announced on 2002-05-13: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021253184.13753.python-list%40python.org http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=662 milter, a Python interface to the Sendmail 8.10-12 libmilter interface, released version 0.4.4 on 2002-05-09: http://www.bmsi.com/python/milter.html FtpCube, a very pretty multi-platform GUI FTP client built on PyGTK, released version 0.3.0 on 2002-05-13: http://ftpcube.sourceforge.net/ rdiff-backup, a program for doing a remote incremental backup of a directory tree with the ability to restore any previous backup, released development version 0.7.4 on 2002-05-11: http://www.stanford.edu/~bescoto/rdiff-backup/ Discussion on python-list this week: The formation of the Python Business Forum, an organization of businesses that write software in Python, was announced. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021079120.30733.python-list%40python.org The organization has a web page. http://pbf.nuxeo.org/ Some Emacs work was posted; Laura Creighton posted a "Python outline mode" by Ronny Wikh which lets you hide the bodies of functions and classes in Emacs. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021230441.6662.python-list%40python.org Bernhard Herzog posted some (slightly broken) code to make Emacs word-wrap paragraphs in Python comments and docstrings correctly. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6qznz9hx0a.fsf%40abnoba.intevation.de Christian Tismer discusses Stackless Python and its prospects for getting into the standard CPython release (not good). http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1020963136.13183.python-list%40python.org Wenshan Du had added multibyte character support to Python and posted a link to it; this initiated a lot of discussion about the right way to internationalize Python. Wenshan Du's post: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=e786d63d.0205080421.3788a0e2%40posting.google.com The multibyte-ready Python: http://www.dohao.org/python/mbcsp/en/ Francois Pinard explains how he wishes he could write French variable names: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1020884595.5671.python-list%40python.org Alex Martelli explains why he would prefer everyone to program in English: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=UVhC8.20845$CN3.673651%40news2.tin.it http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1020937216.3332.python-list%40python.org Stephen Turnbull explains that his Japanese students hate programming in English: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=87pu05mvmf.fsf%40tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp Paul Boddie cuts through Sun's marketing hype and explains what J2EE is, comparing it to available Python software. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=23891c90.0205090751.5f4f40a9%40posting.google.com Tim Peters discusses the history (and the bugs!) of one very small optimization in Python. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021046059.919.python-list%40python.org Ron Stephens is delighted with his ability to run his Python scripts on his new ARM-Linux Zaurus, recommending the Zaurus Python interpreter from Riverbank Computing (the folks who do PyQT, PyKDE, and SIP). http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CDEE799.5030306%40earthlink.net But Alex Martelli is unhappy that Sharp won't sell him a Zaurus because he's in Italy. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=C0KD8.50586$zW3.682855%40news1.tin.it There was some discussion of David Boddie's CMDSyntax module, a sort of replacement for getopt that can automatically pop up a GUI window (with Tkinter or PyQt) to ask for parameters not supplied on the command line. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=18289ee4.0205130632.78dc4dbc%40posting.google.com Supercomputer folks talked about running Python on unusual platforms; in the middle of a thread of Cray folks having trouble, Holger Berger reports that Python 2.2 works fine on NEC's line of vector supercomputers, the SX-5 and SX-6. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=abgcf2$eq4$1%40news.uni-stuttgart.de -- Kragen Sitaker To forget the evil in oneself is to turn one's own good -- now untethered from modesty and rendered tyrannical -- into a magnified power for evil. -- Steve Talbot, NETFUTURE #129, via SMART Letter From kragen@pobox.com Tue May 21 18:44:59 2002 From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 13:44:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Python resources for this week Message-ID: <20020521174459.C4503BDC6@panacea.canonical.org> Programming libraries: PyKDE, PyQt, and SIP --- the Python bindings to KDE and Qt and the tool used to build them --- released version 3.2.4 on 2002-05-18. This is the first version to support KDE 3. http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/ The Python Spread module, a Python interface to the Spread toolkit, which provides a high-performance fault-tolerant distributed message service with both unicast and multicast primitives, released version 1.2 on 2002-05-17. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021668360.22742.python-list%40python.org Pyro, a distributed object system with RPC, mobile objects (including mobile code), naming, events, and automatic reconnection, released version 2.8 on 2002-05-17. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021908666.29990.clpa-moderators%40python.org FXPy, the Python binding to the FOX GUI toolkit, released version 1.0.5 on 2002-05-16: PycURL, a Python interface to the cURL URL-fetching library, released version 7.9.7 on 2002-05-20: http://pycurl.sourceforge.net/ NodeNet, a Python library for networks of connected nodes with GUI support, has released 1.0beta1: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021412785.12096.python-list%40python.org DeveloperWorks has a couple of articles on Python --- "wxHTML for Beginners" and "Parsing With the SimpleParse Module": http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-wxpython?open&l=968,t=gr http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-simple.html?open&l=968,t=gr Fredrik Lundh explains how to cancel event propagation in Tkinter. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=nvbG8.8151$p56.2321947%40newsb.telia.net Rob Andrews wrote an article on Jython Swing Basics: http://uselesspython.com/Jython_Swing_Basics.html Cristian Barbarosie notices that os.path.commonprefix doesn't work as one might expect, and suggests a fix. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6c575772.0205210145.359ea49a%40posting.google.com Discussion on features of Python: Paul Graham asks about generating closures in Python, leading to a thread covering most of the possibilities: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4f52f844.0205141503.40000c50%40posting.google.com Skip Montanaro discusses multiparadigm languages like Python, Common Lisp, C++, etc. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021697071.17004.python-list%40python.org Christopher Browne discusses what it means for Common Lisp to be "multiparadigm", comparing with Oz, contrasting with Ruby, http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=m38z6htaf6.fsf%40chvatal.cbbrowne.com Generator comprehensions came up again. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4c877253.0205132231.6d286d0b%40posting.google.com Alex Martelli discusses adapters and PEP 246, and alternatives to isinstance(): http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=uttC8.40554$zW3.440516%40news1.tin.it The desire for internationalized identifier names that was discussed at such length last week has come up again, in a different form; someone wants to know why apply() insists on having no unicode objects as keys in its kwargs dictionary. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021764992.14333.python-list%40python.org Holger Krekel and Alex Martelli discuss adding currying to Python. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021311145.2513.python-list%40python.org The new incarnation of Stackless Python, with "tasklets" connected by Alef-style "channels", is now working. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021685435.8672.python-list%40python.org Christian Tismer explains with some details. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021881098.25873.python-list%40python.org Andrew Henshaw explains Occam channels, which are related but not the same. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=ueji35ihipuee3%40corp.supernews.com Gonçalo Rodrigues wishes he had explicit interfaces in Python. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=ip5aeu4c4p9ab7q4k5uf09dj94r1sjfr0t%404ax.com Apparently both Zope and Twisted Python have explicit interfaces now. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=ac3vvd$9fo$1%40newshost.accu.uu.nl Jack Diederich posts an implementation of a variation of PEP 274 (dict comprehensions) with no new syntax which allows him to populate existing dictionaries from lists much faster than existing alternatives. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021913254.17657.python-list%40python.org Alex Martelli talks about Sather iterators and their relationship to Python iterators. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=CrSD8.52710$zW3.722063%40news1.tin.it Erik Max Francis explains why dict keys (and, by extension, members of a set) must be immutable. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CE9C04F.3AD43103%40alcyone.com Cameron Laird has written an article on pydoc: http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/python/2001/04/18/pydoc.html Python Programs: IDE Studio, an enhanced version of IDLE, the Python IDE, released version 1.5 on 2002-05-18: http://starship.python.net/crew/mike/Tide/idledev/IDEStudio.html Skip Montanaro points to Bicycle Repair Man, a refactoring browser for Python; version 0.5 was released 2002-05-15. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021667250.1977.python-list%40python.org http://sourceforge.net/projects/bicyclerepair/ Mailman, the GNU mailing list manager (and the one everybody uses these days), released version 2.0.11, which fixes security holes, on 2002-05-20. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021927545.18649.python-list%40python.org DPythOS, a network monitoring and administration system, released version 0.0 on 2002-05-14; this one's by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton, so it might be worth watching: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021378504.8146.clpa-moderators%40python.org Puffin, a framework for writing automated tests for web applications, released version 0.8.10 on 2002-05-14: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021336466.10959.python-list%40python.org ConvertAll, a GUI program for converting quantities between different kinds of units, released version 0.2.2 on 2002-05-16: http://www.xecu.net/dougbell/convertall/ TreeLine, a sort of cross between an outliner and a database, released version 0.3.4 on 2002-05-15: http://www.xecu.net/dougbell/treeline/ LinkChecker, which checks HTML documents for broken links, released stable version 1.4.6 and development version 1.5.2 on 2002-05-15: http://linkchecker.sourceforge.net/ FlawFinder, which finds security holes in source code, released version 0.22 on 2002-05-15: http://www.dwheeler.com/flawfinder/ Problems and solutions: Some discussion about how to look up MX DNS records in Python: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021348163.24212.python-list%40python.org Current Python built with Visual C++ 7.x can't load extension modules without some build-configuration hackery, but it looks like this bug is going to be fixed: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=597ee21d.0205190433.59938215%40posting.google.com Matt Kimball was having some trouble with getting his threads to be scheduled fairly on Windows XP; Tim Peters points out that it's a hard problem to solve in a portable fashion: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021770630.3420.python-list%40python.org Peter Hansen mentions that a particular trick Tim recommends to tweak responsiveness caused performance problems for his group: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CE79FA1.BEECAFE8%40engcorp.com Sean McGrath has a weird problem: when he creates a large, complex object with cPickle, it takes a ridiculously long time to delete, much longer than if he creates the same object by other means; and furthermore, Python 2.1.3 takes five times longer than 1.5.2. Nobody has yet figured out what's going on. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021742251.22977.python-list%40python.org http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021802191.2409.python-list%40python.org It seems that shutil.copy and shutil.copy2 don't properly copy file metadata on Windows, which requires facilities prewin32all is not included in the main Python distribution, so shutil can't depend on it: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021713031.9406.python-list%40python.org Greg Weeks complains that Python isn't backward compatible. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1021652963.460304%40cswreg.cos.agilent.com David LeBlanc defends its non-backward-compatibility. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021664729.24068.python-list%40python.org A puzzling problem with telnetlib comes down to a bug in NT 4.0's gethostbyname: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=696heuo6dakvfoak328t8ej4hlqrfe29lg%404ax.com People discuss getting ANSI color support to work right, which is difficult and painful: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acc1oh$1r5$1%40peabody.colorado.edu There's a long discussion about how to tell whether a string containing Python code contains an unterminated string, culminating in this Holger Krekel post. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021595549.32363.python-list%40python.org Miscellaneous: Mark Hadfield has made further progress running Python on his Cray T3E, although it still doesn't run the test suite to completion: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=absu94$vn5$1%40newsreader.mailgate.org http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=abmlke$m1n$1%40newsreader.mailgate.org http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021595314.25214.python-list%40python.org Laura Creighton compares programming to civil engineering, finding the two more similar than programmers like to think: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021473087.19545.python-list%40python.org Paul Boddie has released a document comparing available Python software to what J2EE provides for Java: http://www.boddie.org.uk/python/web_modules_enterprise.html There is a very long debate about the philosophical topic of aesthetics, frequently touching on ontology and epistemology; Laura Creighton, among others, participates. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021718851.21163.python-list%40python.org Jacob Hallén argues that interoperable small pieces of software are better than large pieces of software. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acavng$pcq$1%40nyheter.chalmers.se The paper version of the Python Cookbook should be out from O'Reilly soon; it's in copy-editing and production. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021569873.21855.python-list%40python.org Tim Danieluk doesn't believe in vendor lock-in, thinks standards are overrated, and thinks the real battlefield is in control of data, not code. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CE9BC7F.A3565ADE%40tundraware.com -- Kragen Sitaker This radically anti-cynical approach to life is not just a shared disposition but also an act of conscious dissent. -- Alan Bershaw, on the attitude of Jewel fans ("everyday angels") From kragen@pobox.com Tue May 28 12:48:17 2002 From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 07:48:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: this week's Python resources Message-ID: <20020528114817.348AEBDC9@panacea.canonical.org> QOTW: Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California. - Edsger Dijkstra (attributed) (quoted by Joost Jacob) Programming Libraries: PyUnitTestBrowser, a GUI test runner for PyUnit ('import unittest') tests, has been released, because its author was terribly disappointed by the primitive nature of existing GUI test runners. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acr79g%24fka%40dispatch.concentric.net NuxDocument, a Zope product that converts files from various formats into HTML and plain text, supporting Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenOffice formats, RTF, and PDF, released version 0.9.2 on 2002-05-27. http://www.nuxeo.org/nuxdocument/ Biggles, a module for publication-quality 2D scientific data plots with output to PostScript, X11, and some raster formats, released version 1.6.2 on 2002-05-26. http://biggles.sourceforge.net/ Holger Krekel mentions that he has rewritten rlcompleter, the readline completer module, so that it works better. Michael Hudson is impressed. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022012880.3531.python-list%40python.org PySQLite, a DB-API-compliant interface to the free-software SQLite SQL embedded database library, which is written in C, has released version 0.1. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022168306.17444.python-list%40python.org Greg Ewing posted some portable pathname manipulation utility functions. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CEC5E05.396422FC%40replyto.address.invalid Python Programs: JinSitu, an interactive introspection environment for Java and Jython, with Emacs-style interactive evaluation, an object tree display, and javadoc integration, has released version 0.2. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acekba%247a0%240%40dosa.alt.net Current, a server for Red Hat's up2date protocol for distributing software updates to a group of machines, released stable version 1.0.4 and development version 1.3.0 on 2002-05-25. http://www.biology.duke.edu/computer/unix/current/ Discussion on Features of Python: Bengt Richter wonders how much code would break if list comprehensions had their own scopes (as new list comprehension users usually expect them to) instead of mutating variables in the enclosing scope. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acu6v9%24hlp%240%40216.39.172.122 Paul Prescod has posted an eloquent apology for Python's design philosophy, entitled "On the Relationship Between Python and Lisp." http://www.prescod.net/python/IsPythonLisp.html Quinn Dunkan had some interesting thoughts about when to use tuples and when to use lists in Python, and when function syntax is preferable to method syntax and vice versa. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=slrnaf293e.td5.quinn%40bolivar.ugcs.caltech.edu http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=slrnaf2aah.td5.quinn%40bolivar.ugcs.caltech.edu There was some discussion about a general framework for adding new grammar rules to Python. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=dopkeusu5c9m8ou2clt89b4dbrmmtd2tre%404ax.com Andrew Dalke, Hans Nowak, and Steven Majewski came up with some frighteningly creative ways of writing the conditional operator in Python. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.OSX.4.43.0205221906390.17977-100000%40d-128-61-180.bootp.virginia.edu There was more discussion about Stackless Python, Limbo, Alef, CSP, Occam, and Transputer hardware. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=uerd0l9d54dac9%40corp.supernews.com In fact, there was so much discussion that Christian Tismer got irritated trying to sort through it all. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022408207.8430.python-list%40python.org Oren Tirosh would like to have 'for any' and 'for every' boolean expressions modeled after list comprehensions. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022410902.27422.python-list%40python.org Ferdinand Jamitzky wants reduce-comprehensions, analogous to list comprehensions. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=f32195af.0205261316.2482d4ac%40posting.google.com Simon Budig complains about the statement/expression dichotomy. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3cf27dda%40si-nic.hrz.uni-siegen.de Christopher Craig has implemented Karatsuba multiplication for Python long integers, so multiplying pairs of integers both of which are larger than about 2**120 (roughly 10**36, an American undecillion) should be significantly faster now. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022289403.22367.python-list%40python.org Problems and Solutions: Johann Höchtl wishes Python applications could be executed from .par files, like Java .jar files, so they were easier to download. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CEBAA0E.20006%40bigfoot.com Mark Chalkley, too, would like Python programs to be easier to distribute; he currently uses Perl instead, apparently because it's easier to distribute Perl programs. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=MPG.175c24a5538e5d7a989687%40news.direcpc.com Yet another person is puzzled by the new property machinery almost, but not quite, working in old-style classes. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CEDB5FB.49EEEDD9%40irl.cri.nz Matt Kimball discovers that the problems with threading fairness he was having last week weren't really Python's fault: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021993724.8792.python-list%40python.org Jeff Epler posts a program to get Tkinter text widgets to size themselves to fit the text within them. It's pretty ugly. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1021999536.1228.python-list%40python.org Oleg Broytmann describes how he builds the Python interpreter in a shared library, more or less by hand, on his Linux box, and mentions that Python 2.3 will build shared libraries by default. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022061577.7842.python-list%40python.org Michael Williams would like to be able to emulate the Pascal 'readln' routine in Python for the purpose of teaching programming. The nearest solution in the ensuing thread is the dreaded Python 'input', which trusts its input. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022065417.1277.python-list%40python.org Paul Boddie and others discussed "cross-site scripting" vulnerabilities in Python CGI scripts and other dynamic page generators. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=23891c90.0205240307.3eca7a57%40posting.google.com Irmen de Jong is working on adding a select loop to Pyro, which is threaded, and he asked for help integrating the select loop with the threading. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acqha3%24gli%241%40news1.xs4all.nl Scott Gilbert suggests a way to return 'array' objects from a C extension module. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=79b2b0bb.0205271824.56773e2b%40posting.google.com Miscellaneous: EuroPython 2002 is next month, June 26-28, in Charleroi, Belgium. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acg6oc%24gh2%241%40newshost.accu.uu.nl Alex Martelli, a C++ expert, eloquently explained why having a feature in a language means that programmers have to learn it and why it's best not to have multiple different ways to express exactly the same thing, and therefore, why C++ is a terrible language. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=zEMA8.2731%24CN3.101018%40news2.tin.it Python 2.2.1 runs on MS-DOS; I missed this last week. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3ce7fc1f%240%2426970%249b622d9e%40news.freenet.de Lysator is building a build farm for Python called the Snake Farm. This should get build problems on various platforms ironed out in a hurry. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022222381.31604.python-list%40python.org A couple of people requested help learning pyGTK; responses pointed to several resources. Sample Applications: http://landialler.sourceforge.net/ --- a LAN dialer http://oomadness.tuxfamily.org/gtablature/en/ --- GTablature http://gramps.sourceforge.net/ --- gramps Tutorials: http://www.icon.co.za/%7Ezapr/Project1.html http://www.moeraki.com/pygtktutorial/gtk-tut.html There was some discussion about how to handle callbacks written in Python in multithreaded applications. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Xns9217DBE6F4C1Bcliechtigmxnet%4062.2.16.82 James Besemer wrote a very long, but still interesting, description of his experience with performance-critical applications and what parts of those apps Python was good for (and what parts it wasn't.) http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1020849410.32598.python-list%40python.org Xavier Monsegur wanted to found a New York City Python Users' Group. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022044417.14752.python-list%40python.org Various folks tried to figure out how to cite the Python language in academic papers. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=7BEH8.1252%24H67.7649%40tor-nn1.netcom.ca http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1022297561.14994.python-list%40python.org http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4L4I8.9196%24p56.2659365%40newsb.telia.net Mark Hadfield got the md5 module to work on his Cray T3E. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acej75%24c0g%241%40newsreader.mailgate.org Not surprisingly, self.__foo-style private attributes don't interact well with __slots__, just as they didn't interact well with __getattr__ and __setattr__. A new user was puzzled. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Xns9218B57730E9cliechtigmxnet%4062.2.16.82 Damian Menscher wants to be able to display Numerical Python arrays in a more compact form. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=awiH8.10159%24U7.121015%40vixen.cso.uiuc.edu Wenshan Du, the amazing guy who hacked Chinese language support into Python (so he didn't have to write variable names in English) a couple of weeks ago, has set up a new web site called "Python World". Most of the content is presently only in Simplified Chinese, but he plans to translate it. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=e786d63d.0205262032.5f6182e4%40posting.google.com http://dohao.org/python/ William Dodé has set up a French-language Wiki about Python. http://wikipython.tuxfamily.org -- Kragen Sitaker > Then the object is collected. The finalizer is not run a second time. Can you cast a spell to resoul an undead object? Do the resouled undead differ from the living? -- Charles Fiterman on gclist@iecc.com