Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Nov 3)
Emile van Sebille
--Guido van Rossum
"...at some point in the future Python *will* grow (optional) type
declarations for all sorts of things (arguments, local variables,
instanc e variables)."
--Guido van Rossum
The developer list responds to a request for Master Thesis ideas with a
multitude of python wish lists.
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/thread.html#39763
Marc-Andre Lemburg offers what must be the definitive answer on
accessing a MS Access database from linux, and suggests switching to
MS Desktop Engine.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3Dmailman.253.106753...@python.org
Jerome Alet releases PyPlet adding speech to IRC.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3Dpan.2003.10.29...@librelogiciel.com
Trent Mick and Martin v. L=F6wis provide hints to Mauro Cicognini and
Bernhard Mulder on getting python running on Win64 systems.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3Dbnjngd%24smr%241%40grillo.cs.interbusiness.it
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3DNdSob.885$mp1...@newssvr29.news.pro digy.com
Ian McConnell gets advice on approaches to distributed processing of
images.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3D877k2q...@emit.demon.co.uk
Boost python is alive and well on Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/c++-sig/2003-October/thread.html#6054
Just van Rossum tells that there's an iChat channel called "MacPython"
now. Hit cmd-G in iChat and type the channel name.
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonmac-sig/2003-October/thread.html#9183
Facundo Batista wants a monetary data type (Yea!) and after being
directed to decimal.py, he solicits comments on a proposed PEP.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3Dmailman.295.106762...@python.org
Twisted 1.1.0: an event-driven networking framework for server and client
applications.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3Dmailman.145.106727...@python.org
Python for .NET: a near-seamless integration of Python with the .NET
common language runtime, takes a step forward with the release of
version 1.0 beta1
http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet/
ReSTedit v0.3: a GUI tool for editing and interactively exploring texts
in the ReStructuredText format
http://python.net/~gherman/ReSTedit.html
Robin Dunn reveals that there is a wxWindows Software Foundation being
formed with Mitch Kapor as chairman.
http://www.wxwindows.org/sf/index.htm
Gerson Kurz releases pyfromc, an example of using an embedded python
interpreter in c++.
http://p-nand-q.com/python/pyfromc.html
PEP 289 is accepted, and will introduce generator expressions as a high
performance, memory efficient generalization of list comprehensions and
generators.
http://python.org/peps/pep-0289.html
Ian Bicking releases SQLObject 0.5, an Object-Relational Mapper (ORM),
wrapping your database tables in easy-to-use Python classes.
http://sqlobject.org/
========================================================================
Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in
these pages:
Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional
center of Pythonia
http://www.python.org
Notice especially the master FAQ
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html
PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the
marvelous daily python url
http://www.pythonware.com/daily
Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new)
World-Wide Web articles related to Python.
http://www.awaretek.com/nowak/mygale.html
While cosmetically similar, Mygale and the Daily Python-URL
are utterly different in their technologies and generally in
their results.
comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newly-revitalized newsgroup at least weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python.announce
Brett Cannon continues the marvelous tradition established by
Andrew Kuchling and Michael Hudson of intelligently summarizing
action on the python-dev mailing list once every other week.
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/
The Python Package Index catalogues packages.
http://www.python.org/pypi/
The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references
to all sorts of Python resources.
http://www.vex.net/~x/parnassus/
Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group
mailing lists
http://www.python.org/sigs/
The Python Business Forum "further[s] the interests of companies
that base their business on ... Python."
http://www.python-in-business.org
The Python Software Foundation has replaced the Python Consortium
as an independent nexus of activity
http://www.python.org/psf/
Cetus does much of the same
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html
Python FAQTS
http://python.faqts.com/
Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are
http://www.python.org/channews.rdf
http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi
http://python.de/backend.php
For more, see
http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?ShowMatch=python&ShowStatus=all
The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a
SourceForge reincarnation.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=355470&group_id=5470&func=browse
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0042.html
The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com.
edi...@pythonjournal.com and edi...@pythonjournal.cognizor.com
welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding
of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work.
*Py: the Journal of the Python Language*
http://www.pyzine.com
Archive probing tricks of the trade:
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python&num=100
http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=site%3Dgroups%26group%3Dcomp.lang.python.*
Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://www.ddj.com/topics/pythonurl/
http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant)
or
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <Pytho...@phaseit.net> should get through.
To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning
(approximately), ask <cla...@phaseit.net> to subscribe. Mention
"Python-URL!".
-- The Python-URL! Team--
Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Python-URL!" project.
Dave Benjamin
> QOTW: "...I want to reserve .var for the "with" statement (a la VB)."
> --Guido van Rossum
I saw this, too! Is this a joke? It seems to contradict the FAQ entry:
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general.html#why-doesn-t-python-have-a-with-statement-like-some-other-languages
It does seem like the .dot .prefix would disambiguate the variable scope as
long as it is used consistently, but I must say it was a surprise to read
this...
--
.:[ dave benjamin (ramenboy) -:- www.ramenfest.com -:- www.3dex.com ]:.
: d r i n k i n g l i f e o u t o f t h e c o n t a i n e r :
John Roth
"Dave Benjamin" <ra...@lackingtalent.com> wrote in message
news:slrnbqcu85...@lackingtalent.com...
> In article <vqcn9oo...@corp.supernews.com>, Emile van Sebille wrote:
> > QOTW: "...I want to reserve .var for the "with" statement (a la VB)."
> > --Guido van Rossum
>
> I saw this, too! Is this a joke? It seems to contradict the FAQ entry:
>
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general.html#why-doesn-t-python-have-a-with-statement-like-some-other-languages
>
> It does seem like the .dot .prefix would disambiguate the variable scope
as
> long as it is used consistently, but I must say it was a surprise to read
> this...
Aparently Guido has a number of directions he'd like to take Python,
and some kind of *optional* typing is on the list. That's no secret,
I've seen references to it a number of times.
Every few months, someone brings up a 'with' statement. The FAQ
points out a number of problems with it, however, if you're willing
to give up some dynamism and insert the needed type declarations,
then it's not only eminently doable, but (if done right) would help
demonstrate program correctness.
John Roth
Dave Benjamin
>
> "Dave Benjamin" <ra...@lackingtalent.com> wrote in message
> news:slrnbqcu85...@lackingtalent.com...
>> In article <vqcn9oo...@corp.supernews.com>, Emile van Sebille wrote:
>> > QOTW: "...I want to reserve .var for the "with" statement (a la VB)."
>> > --Guido van Rossum
>>
>> I saw this, too! Is this a joke? It seems to contradict the FAQ entry:
>>
> http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general.html#why-doesn-t-python-have-a-with-statement-like-some-other-languages
>>
>> It does seem like the .dot .prefix would disambiguate the variable scope
> as
>> long as it is used consistently, but I must say it was a surprise to read
>> this...
>
> Aparently Guido has a number of directions he'd like to take Python,
> and some kind of *optional* typing is on the list. That's no secret,
> I've seen references to it a number of times.
Hmm! Well, if it's any indication of the future, ActionScript 2.0 (in effort
to follow JavaScript 2.0) and Perl 6 support some degree of optional typing.
As long as it doesn't feel "tacked on" or syntactically cumbersome, I'm for
it. I'd be especially interested in seeing some sort of type inference.
> Every few months, someone brings up a 'with' statement. The FAQ
> points out a number of problems with it, however, if you're willing
> to give up some dynamism and insert the needed type declarations,
> then it's not only eminently doable, but (if done right) would help
> demonstrate program correctness.
In ActionScript, there is a "with" statement, but its use is discouraged for
several reasons. First, it's confusing trying to figure out which scope
the names are coming from; even *writing* code with a "with" can be
guesswork, so reading the code isn't much better. Second, it's inefficient,
since it extends the scope chain temporarily, requiring an additional level
of indirection for any non-local variable lookup. But I think the dot-prefix
would solve this problem, since it would be unambiguous from the syntax
whether you're referring to the "with"-ed object or something else.
John Roth
I expect that's a good part of the reason for letting it simmer for the
last few years. The current proposals aren't completely cooked yet.
There are a number of ways of doing dynamic type checking (not
static type checking, though.) All of them share the property of being
both difficult and ugly to some degree or other.
As far as type inference goes, look at Bicycle Repair Man. It does
a form of type inference to check whether various refactorings are
possible. While I'm certainly not prepared to channel Guido, I think
he's in favor of type inference, if it can be done cleanly, without a lot
of wierd surprises.
John Roth
Robin Becker
for some reason these supplied google links are failing for me. Is there
some way to get the right urls?
> Marc-Andre Lemburg offers what must be the definitive answer on
> accessing a MS Access database from linux, and suggests switching to
> MS Desktop Engine.
> http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3Dmailman.253.1067539482.702.pyt
>hon-...@python.org
>
> Jerome Alet releases PyPlet adding speech to IRC.
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3Dpan.2003.10.29.15.29.19.383092@li
>brelogiciel.com
......
--
Robin Becker
Robin Becker
<ro...@jessikat.fsnet.co.uk> writes
help.
--
Robin Becker
Robin Munn
Replace the '=3D' string with a bare '=' (equals sign) and the URL should
work for you.
--
Robin Munn
rm...@pobox.com