🌐 Mailman 3 January 2008 - Python-announce-list - python.org

Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jan 28)
by Gabriel Genellina Jan. 28, 2008

Jan. 28, 2008

QOTW: "The nice thing with Pyrex is that you can use the Python interpreter, or not use it, more or less depending on your way to declare things and your way to code. So, in a way, you have full control over the compromise between speed and facility. The temptation is always strong to use Python facilities, but I guess that with enough discipline, you can displace and put the equilibrium wherever you want." - Francois Pinard "If you don't ever need or have the chance to debug it, you probably aren't doing programming." - Peter Hansen Early-bird registration for PyCon 2008 continues through 20 February: http://us.pycon.org/2008/registration/ Proposal: auto-assignment to self of some constructor arguments: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/32b421… Looking for self-evaluating strings, such that eval(s)==s: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/11a74d… Four small problems, with several answers and timings: Find the minimum value from those associated to keys in a dict: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/c852ac… Find the index of the maximum element in a list: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/d5ff99… Same but minimum element instead: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/284094… Take pairs sequentially from a list: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/cf5ab4… Countdown game solver: combine a few numbers with +-*/() to obtain a given result. Several, very different solutions: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/64442b… Another game: Sudoku, several approaches too, some incredibly short: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/99e43f… A guy *really* trying to make sense of Python bytecode disassembled as if it were actual 80x86 code (still LOLAROTF!!!): http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/df14a3… ======================================================================== 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. Just beginning with Python? This page is a great place to start: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers The Python Papers aims to publish "the efforts of Python enthusiats": http://pythonpapers.org/ The Python Magazine is a technical monthly devoted to Python: http://pythonmagazine.com Readers have recommended the "Planet" sites: http://planetpython.org http://planet.python.org comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be sure to scan this newsgroup weekly. http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python.announce Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..." Updates appear more-than-weekly: http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html Steve Bethard continues the marvelous tradition early borne by Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson, Brett Cannon, Tony Meyer, and Tim Lesher 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/ Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're subject with a vision of what the language makes practical. http://www.pythonology.com/success The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official responsibility for Python's development and maintenance. http://www.python.org/psf/ Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation. http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches. http://www.google.com/groups?as_usubject=weekly%20python%20patch Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python hyperlinks retains a few gems. http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html Python FAQTS http://python.faqts.com/ The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and interesting recipes. http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python Many Python conferences around the world are in preparation. Watch this space for links to them. 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://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0042/ The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com. editor(a)pythonjournal.com and editor(a)pythonjournal.cognizor.com welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work. del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary. It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence. http://del.icio.us/tag/python *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.pyth… Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here: http://www.ddj.com/topic/python/ (requires subscription) http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=python-url+group:comp.lang.python*&s… http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant) or http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lan… There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments for and against are occasionally entertained. Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome. E-mail to <Python-URL(a)phaseit.net> should get through. To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning (approximately), ask <claird(a)phaseit.net> to subscribe. Mention "Python-URL!". Write to the same address to unsubscribe. -- The Python-URL! Team-- Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and sponsor the "Python-URL!" project. Watch this space for upcoming news about posting archives.

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Leo 4.4.6 final released
by Edward K Ream Jan. 27, 2008

Jan. 27, 2008

Leo 4.4.6 final is available at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3458&package_id=29106 Leo 4.4.6 fixes several recently reported bugs, all minor. Leo is a text editor, data organizer, project manager and much more. See: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/intro.html The highlights of Leo 4.4.6: ---------------------------- - Fixes all known bugs. - Added @auto importers for javascript and xml files. - Added find-next-clone and toggle-sparse-move commands. Links: ------ Leo: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html Home: http://sourceforge.net/projects/leo/ Download: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3458 CVS: http://leo.tigris.org/source/browse/leo/ Quotes: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/testimonials.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward K. Ream email: edreamleo(a)yahoo.com Leo: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html --------------------------------------------------------------------

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SUMMON 1.8.4 RELEASED: rapid prototyping of 2D visualizations
by rasmus Jan. 26, 2008

Jan. 26, 2008

SUMMON 1.8.4 SUMMON is a python extension module that provides rapid prototyping of 2D visualizations. By heavily relying on the python scripting language, SUMMON allows the user to rapidly prototype a custom visualization for their data, without the overhead of a designing a graphical user interface or recompiling native code. By simplifying the task of designing a visualization, users can spend more time on understanding their data. SUMMON is designed to be fast interface for developing interactive scene graphs for OpenGL. Although python libraries already exist for accessing OpenGL, python is relatively slow for real-time interaction with large visualizations (trees with 100,000 leaves, sparse matrices with a million non-zeros, etc.). Therefore, with SUMMON all real-time interaction is handled with compiled native C++ code (via extension module). Python is only executed in the construction and occasional interaction with the visualization. This arrangement provides the best of both worlds. SUMMON 1.8.4 comes with the following features: * a demo large sparse matrix visualizer (ideal for visualizing clusterings) * a demo tree visualizer * Python C++ extension module * Fast OpenGL graphics * Drawing arbitrary points, lines, polygons, text with python scripting * Binding inputs (keyboard, mouse, hotspots) to any python function * Separate threads for python and graphics (allows use of python prompt and responsive graphics at the same time) * Transparently handles graphics event loop, scrolling, zooming, text layout (auto-clipping, scaling, alignment), and click detection; allowing you to focus on viewing your data * SVG output (also GIF/PNG/JPG/etc via ImageMagick) * Cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OS/X) * And lots of examples for how to prototype your own custom 2D visualizations Web site and download: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rasmus/summon/

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[Announce] Beta TinyFugue 5 with Python Scripting
by Sizer Jan. 26, 2008

Jan. 26, 2008

I've got a beta version of the Mu* client TinyFugue 5.0b8 ( http://tinyfugue.sourceforge.net/ ) patched to use Python as the scripting language. TinyFugue is very powerful, and its suitability for screen makes it a perennial favorite, but the scripting language isn't nearly as nice as Python (it's ancient). Rather than write my own Mu* client as everyone else seems to end up doing, I opted for patching the Python interpreter into TinyFugue and adding hooks and value conversions both ways - so far it's amazingly powerful. I want to get more feedback and usage before I submit any patches to Ken, so if you want to check it out at http://sizer99.com/tf/ and let me know what works and what doesn't I'd appreciate it. I've provided a patch and an anonymous svn checkout. I have found an issue where with Python 2.5.0 (but not 2.5.1) where importing modules that call methods with keywords causes it to return with a Null object error from PyObject_Call. So don't use it with 2.5.0. Ron

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Smart Debugger (Python)
by karthikeyan Rajaram Jan. 24, 2008

Jan. 24, 2008

Hi All, Please find the smart debugger for python. it is an enchanced version of python pdb with data rendering feature. http://develsdb.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/python/ http://develsdb.googlecode.com/svn/wiki/SmartDebuggerPython.wiki hope you find this useful. Regards, Karthik ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

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REMINDER: OSCON 2008 Call for Proposals
by Aahz Jan. 23, 2008

Jan. 23, 2008

The O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) is accepting proposals for tutorials and presentations. The submission period ends Feb 4. OSCON 2008 will be in Portland, Oregon July 21-25. For more information and to submit a proposal, see http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/ -- Aahz (aahz(a)pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection." --Butler Lampson

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ANN: Release 1.9 of SimPy "Simulation in Python" package
by kgmuller Jan. 23, 2008

Jan. 23, 2008

With great pleasure we announce the availability of SimPy version 1.9. This is a major release, with significant changes to API and documentation, bug fixes, and improved performance for large models. SimPy 1.9 can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=62366 . The SimPy homepage is at http://SimPy.SourceForge.Net . What is SimPy? ============== SimPy (= Simulation in Python) is an object-oriented, process-based discrete-event simulation language completely implemented in Python. It is released under the GNU Lesser GPL (LGPL). SimPy provides the modeler with components of a simulation model including processes, for active components like customers, messages, and vehicles, and resources, for passive components that form limited capacity congestion points like servers, checkout counters, and tunnels. It also provides monitor variables to aid in gathering statistics. Random variates are provided by the standard Python random module. Many users claim that SimPy is one of the cleanest, easiest to use discrete event simulation packages! SimPy is in use at many universities, research institutes and in industry. SimPy comes with data collection capabilities, GUI and plotting packages. It can be easily interfaced to other packages, such as plotting, statistics, or database systems. SimPy is platform-independent and runs on all systems on which Python 2.3 or later is available. Acknowledgements ================ This version is again the result of many months of intense collaboration in the SimPy community. It includes design ideas and improvements of runtime performance through better event list handling proposed by Prof. Norm Matloff and a team of graduate students working with him. Thank you, guys! We also wish to thank all users and developers who assisted in performance measurement and beta testing. Our thanks go also to Virgil Stokes of Uppsala University who proposed the addition of a method in Monitor and Tally which returns the time-weighted variance of observations. ============================= Release notes for SimPy 1.9 ============================= Changes ========= - The handling of the event list has been changed to provide significantly shorter runtimes for larger models (models with thousands of processes) and models with many interrupts or process cancellations. The event list is now only partially sorted, using the ``heapq`` package instead of bisect. Cancelled event notices are no longer removed by unpost, but just marked and then popped and ignored by nextev. The event list is no longer based on a dictionary. This latter, very important improvement is based on a SimPy tuning study by Prof. Norm Matloff and some of his bright students. Thanks, Norm and team! - The Manual has been edited and given an easier-to-read layout. - The Bank2 tutorial has been extended. Repairs ======== - The tracing of "activate" statements by SimulationTrace.py (which had been erroneously de-activated) has been enabled again. Additions ============ - A method returning the time-weighted variance of observations has been added to classes Monitor and Tally. - A shortcut activation method called "start" has been added to class Process. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (end of Release Notes) Enjoy! Best wishes for happy, productive SimPying in 2008! Tony Vignaux Klaus Müller

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PyCon 2008 Financial Aid Available
by Ted Pollari Jan. 22, 2008

Jan. 22, 2008

The Python Software Foundation has allocated some funds to help people attend PyCon 2008. If you would like to come to PyCon but can't afford it, the PSF may be able to help you. The financial aid can cover some or all of the following: • Your registration for PyCon • Your hotel room at the conference hotel • Your flight or other transportation Please see http://us.pycon.org/2008/registration/financial-aid/ for details & instructions. The deadline for applications is February 11th. -- Ted Pollari PyCon 2008 Financial Aid Coordinator

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ANN: TurboGears 1.0.4.2 Released
by Christopher Arndt Jan. 21, 2008

Jan. 21, 2008

TurboGears 1.0.4.2 Released =========================== The TurboGears team with its release manager, Florent Aide, is pleased to announce the release of TurboGears 1.0.4.2. This is the latest in a series of releases from the 1.0 branch, which has been the stable version of TurboGears for more than a year now. With this release the 1.0 branch will enter maintenance mode, which means, that the TurboGears 1 Team will concentrate on preparing a beta release of the 1.1 branch and only critical bug-fixes will still be released for 1.0. (In the meanwhile, other folks from the TurboGears team are putting together a preview release of the upcoming TurboGears 2 version -- but this is a different story.) What is TurboGears? ------------------- TurboGears is a popular rapid web development megaframework, built from a number of great Python projects and with a bunch of high-level features built within the TurboGears project. The goal of the project is to ease development of modern web applications and support the full stack from database back-end to the web client front-end. For more information about the project and its goals please visit the homepage: http://www.turbogears.org/ Where to get it? ---------------- As always, TurboGears can be installed by following the instructions in the wiki: http://docs.turbogears.org/1.0/Install What's New? ----------- Since this is an important milestone in the TurboGears release history, here's a summary of the most important changes from last couple of beta versions leading up to this release. Detailed information can be found in the ChangeLog as usual: http://trac.turbogears.org/wiki/ChangeLog Features: * First stable release to support SQLalchemy 0.4.0. * Many pagination improvements * Many quickstart template improvements (logging, start-up scripts, model, coding style) * turbogears.url() has proper support for multiple parameter values and parameters passed as lists. * tg-admin quickstart allow to import a project into an SVN repository when creating it. - Many i18n improvements (string collection in Kid templates, JavaScript i18n, tg-admin i18 command line interface) - A lot of unit tests have been added. Fixes: - Important security fix (CVE-2008-0252) by now requiring CherryPy 2.3.0 - Fixes for visit cookie expiration and re-sending - Many fixes in the parameter encoding/decoding logic (Visit-/IdentityFilter) - toolbox loading will no more crash trying to import missing SQLObject module. - Many i18n fixes (unicode handling, ignore XML PIs and comments) - Several fixes in turbogears.testutil Contributors ------------ Too many to name them all here ;-) Please see the ChangeLog at http://trac.turbogears.org/wiki/ChangeLog for a list of contributors for each release. We would like to thank everybody involved for their support! Christopher Arndt

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Berlin (Germany) Python User Group is meeting on 23.1.
by Stephan Diehl Jan. 21, 2008

Jan. 21, 2008

The Berlin Python User Group is meeting on the 23.1. at newthinking store at 7pm. All details can be found at http://wiki.python.de/User_Group_Berlin. The Berlin Python User Group is planning to meet every two month to talk about Python. Most talking will be done in german, but I can assure you that english could be spoken as well, if the need arises...

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