🌐 Mailman 3 June 1999 - Python-list - python.org

Dealing with faults matters (was: Is Python dying?)
by claird＠Starbase.NeoSoft.COM Aug. 28, 2003

Aug. 28, 2003

In article <3706f449.12085377(a)news.cybercity.dk>, Morten Christensen <mmc(a)vip.cybercity.dk> wrote: >On 31 Mar 1999 06:01:03 -0600, claird(a)Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Cameron >Laird) wrote: >>*I* certainly discuss it. Anyone who understands >>that exception-handling is important I invite to >>realize that exception-handling on the sociologi- >>cal-organizational dimension has an even bigger >>multiplier. >> >>This is a plank of my "Visual C considered profes- >>sional malpractice" campaign. > >??? > >...I understand exception handling and regard it as very important, >although the (Visual) C++ implementation is really awful (as everyone >who have experienced "unexplainable" Visual C++ exceptions of unknown >origin and type knows ).... I also know a lot about how exception >handling is actually implemented in modern OO languages such as C++ >(this was the subject I wrote my master thesis on).... > >HOWEVER, I have NO clue about what you mean by exception-handling as a >multiplier on the sociological-organization dimension :-) I would like >to find out. Can you explain? . . . Happily. Excuse my giddiness, please; I see that that last message *did* wander too far into the land of obscurity. Here's what I was saying: exception-handling is important. Programs that intelligently use exception-handling mechanisms are better programs. Exception-handling is even more important to people. People and organizations that deal with exceptions intelligently, and don't pre- tend that everything should be without fault, are better people and organizations. In fact, a correct computer program often has over half its lines devoted to accomo- dating error. A wise person will have good ways to respond to criticism/problems/diffi- culties/...; dealing with success is relatively easier. -- Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html claird(a)NeoSoft.com +1 281 996 8546 FAX

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Bug in v1.5.2 Websucker GUI?
by dhfx＠realtime.net June 13, 2003

June 13, 2003

I'm running v1.5.2 on a Win95 box. I tried wsgui.py and got the following error message: ... File "C:\ ... \WSGUI.PY", line 165, in go self.sucker.rootdir = os.path.dirname( [ websucker.Sucker.savefilename(self.url)) ] TypeError: unbound method must be called with class instance 1st arg (the part in [ ] didn't appear in the message - I added it from the code) The object-instance self.sucker is an instantiation of class SuckerThread, which is derived from class Sucker of the websucker code module. The SuckerThread class includes a method savefilename() which overwrites the method in websucker.Sucker of the same name. Whoever coded wsgui evidently wanted to use the method of the parent class, rather than the method of the derived class. What seems to be giving trouble is that the arg of dirname() is a class method, rather than a method of an instance of the class. Here's what I did: I defined a new method savefilename1() in SuckerThread which just calls the savefilename() of the parent class: def savefilename1(self, url): return websucker.Sucker.savefilename(self, url) Then I changed the code at "line 165" to the following: self.sucker.rootdir = os.path.dirname( self.sucker.savefilename1(url)) and now it works. Note that the arg "self" of savefilename1() in the line above is not needed, it's implicit. In fact, when I had it in, I got an error message that I had too many args! David Friedman

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Python GUIs: Abandoning TkInter and welcoming wxPython?
by mikael＠pobox.com July 15, 1999

July 15, 1999

Hi, Python v1.5 adopted TkInter as its standard GUI framework, even to the extent of including TkInter in the (Intel/Windows) installation package. Unfortunately, TkInter appears to run sluggish [1] on all the Intel/Windows computers I've evaluated it on (which includes several Pentium II 400+ computers). However, the wxPython GUI, available from http://alldunn.com/wxPython/, does not appear to suffer from similar performance problems, at least under Windows. As a matter of fact, it appears to be very easy to make commercial grade GUIs using wxPython. I'd like some discussion on whether or not it is a good idea to abandon TkInter, before it gets too widely used, and instead adopt wxPython as the primary GUI framework for Python. Having said this, I have to say that I'm in no way a TkInter or a wxPython expert. I've evaluated both of them and found wxPython to be the winner - and TkInter without a real chance of getting used by me. Also, can anyone comment on the features available in TkInter and wxPython - perhaps even make a feature comparison chart? [1] By sluggish I mean: You can see, or at least sense, the window update operations. Windows are not drawn instantly, but in visually detectable steps. P.S. Let's not make a war out of this; I just want to know if there's anybody else who feels wxPython is performing better than TkInter. -- Mikael

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Binary pickle portability
by Olaf Delgado July 11, 1999

July 11, 1999

Hi folks! Lately I observed strange things when trying to unpickle a binary pickle (including floating point numbers) produced on a different architecture. The Python versions involved were 1.5.1 and 1.5.2, the systems Irix 5 on Mips and Linux on Intel x86. Explanations I can think of: a) An incompatibility of binary pickles between 1.5.1 and 1.5.2 b) Pickle stores floats in native format. c) A problem in my installations. Any hints? Should binary pickles be avoided when sharing files between different systems/installations? Thanks! Olaf

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.pyo's without .pyc's?
by Randall Hopper July 9, 1999

July 9, 1999

I'm trying to cook a minimalist Python install, and I find that python -O won't run without .pyc's in-place, even when there are pyo's. I thought pyc's were the straight-compiled version, pyo's were the optimized version, and they were independent. Is this correct? To be specific: Python-1.5.2 > ff 'os.*' ./lib/python1.5/os.pyo ./lib/python1.5/os.pyc Python-1.5.2 > python Python 1.5.2 (#2, May 26 1999, 12:25:54) [C] on irix646-n32 Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam >>> ^D Python-1.5.2 > find . -name '*.pyc' | xargs rm Python-1.5.2 > python -O 'import exceptions' failed; use -v for traceback Warning! Falling back to string-based exceptions Trying to run a python script with -O fails on other modules (os for example). -- Randall Hopper aa8vb(a)yahoo.com

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Why is tcl broken?
by Fernando Mato Mira July 8, 1999

July 8, 1999

Hello, I'm trying to collect a list of all the _current_ issues making tcl a bad language choice. I'd like concrete examples, and not just vague assertions that cannot be put porward honestly. I think that as is usual in this newsgroups, there's going to be people that actually know what they are talking about (and even better, experienced) when referring to a language that is not their favorite. If you have references to articles of the sort, that will be useful, too. Note that I've not listed comp.lang.tcl for increased productivity, and to avoid starting a flame war. Hopefully some misconceptions will be filtered down here, and _then_, the summary can be presented in that newsgroup for their defense. Thanks in advance,

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Build the Python library into the binary
by James C. Ahlstrom July 7, 1999

July 7, 1999

Now that Python 1.5.2 is here I need to upgrade from 1.5. We use Python internally and also ship Python applications. Our environment is mixed PC's, Suns and linux boxes. Our customers all have PC's. I always find upgrades difficult, especially at customer sites since we have no access, and have to depend on our Wise install script. I keep thinking how much easier this would be if the Python library were built into the binary. I mean that on PC's, the library were part of python15.dll for example. No more worrys about a bad PYTHONPATH, the registry, my 1.5.2 binary using 1.5 libraries, the different ways all this works on different platforms, etc. You just replace python15.dll and you are at 1.5.2. Simple. So I wrote some code. I don't consider it finished but it works. It makes the Python library part of the binary. 1) The same code works for Unix and Windows. No "#ifdefs". 2) It uses the existing "frozen module" logic which has been used as a way to ship Python main programs. 3) It extends frozen modules so that multiple frozen modules can be linked together at run time. Currently there can only be one frozen module. 4) Multiple frozen modules are built as regular Python extension modules, and they install themselves when they are initialized. You request them in Setup as usual. This was the only way I knew to do the initialization in a portable way (suggestions?). 5) The C code is stupidly simple and very short. New code goes into frozen.c, and few other changes are required. 6) There is a Python program in Tools/freeze which creates the Python extension module with the Python libraries. It uses the new "modulefinder.py" program. Thanks to whoever wrote it! It can also be used to create other frozen modules, thus solving the problem of how to make a frozen module. 7) The extension module need not be imported itself. It installs the built-in frozen modules jusy by being initialized. But if you import it, it has methods to turn the frozen modules on and off, and to print the names in the modules. So my questions are: 1) Am I the only one having trouble keeping the Python binary and library files in sync? 2) Is any of this of interest? Should it be added to Python? 3) What features should be included? Does this do enough, too much? 4) Is this the right way to do it. More technical details are available on request. Jim Ahlstrom

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make clean bug in 1.5.2
by Bill Janssen July 6, 1999

July 6, 1999

Running "make clean" seems to leave a couple of problematic files, SRC/libpython1.5.a, and getbuildinfo.o, which then cause problems when I try to "make" again. Bill

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file.tell problems (1.5.2/Win32)
by esuzm＠primrose.csv.warwick.ac.uk July 6, 1999

July 6, 1999

I've been meeting some surprises using the seek and tell on file objects recently. I don't know if these are bugs in Python or stdio, in Win32 or in general, or are simply broken as designed, but: - If a file is opened in 'a'ppend mode, but nothing has yet been written to it, tell() returns zero. - Values returned by tell() - possibly only on a append file, I don't know - seem to be randomly a bit wrong unless flush() is used before reading. Can anyone confirm this? -- This posting was brought to you by And Clover. (Sorry.)

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Python, ASP - Namespace (again)
by Nikolai Kirsebom July 5, 1999

July 5, 1999

Trying again - since I'm rather stuck, and I would like to stick to Python. I'm trying to use Python as scripting language on the web-server, however - have problems to see how the namespace scope is handled. FILE - GenDb.py ============= class GenDb: def __init__(self): self.ConnStr = "" def SetDbAndTable(self, db, table): self.Db = db self.Table = table self.ConnStr = "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=f:\\Databases\\%s" % db def Attr(self, attrName): if attrName == "abc": return(self.ConnStr) else: return("-non-") FILE - KSdebatt.py =============== from GenDb import * class KSdebatt(GenDb): def __init__(self): self.SetDbAndTable("KSdebatt.mdb", "BillMrk") FILE - SCRIPT1.ASP ================= <%@ LANGUAGE = Python %> <% import sys sys.path.append("f:\\PythonScripts") from KSdebatt import * o=KSdebatt() %> <HTML> <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="abc" VALUE="<%= o.Attr("abc") %>" SIZE=20> </HTML> when I run the statements in the script1.asp file in an interactive window, I can create the KSdebatt object, however when I run the script on the server - I get the following message: Python ActiveX Scripting Engine error '80020009' Traceback (innermost last): File "<Script Block >", line 4, in ? o=KSdebatt() NameError: KSdebatt /ksdebatt/pages/Script1.asp, line 6 o=KSdebatt() If it is possible I would like to 'hide' the object (o) inside the KSdebatt module - that is to have the instanciation inside the module itself - but still be able to access it from the ASP-code in the script (o.Attr....). Is this possible ? I'm running on NT 4.0 SP 3 and python 1.5.2b2 Thanks for any help Nikolai Kirsebom

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