🌐 Mailman 3 December 2004 - Python-list - python.org

Larry Wall & Cults
by xah＠xahlee.org Jan. 21, 2005

Jan. 21, 2005

Larry Wall and Cults (Lazyness, Impatience and Hubris) 200012 Dear readers, Did you know that throughout history there's this thing called cult? It is a very interesting phenomenon. I don't have time to expound and teach, but will try to brief you. These cults, are often lead by a single person. They form a group as small as a dozen to multinational octopuses (such as Scientology). Their creed varies from the mild in appearance (Dianetics) to appalling (flat earth, extraordinary life-after-death, impinging apocalypse scenarios, militant anti-government conspiracy, diabolism with human sacrifices ...). Don't think that i'm citing from some arcane books buried in libraries. These are real, and not difficult to find in real life. Some of these cult leaders, are so able to totally wash their member's brain, as to have them autonomously swear and volunteer to die for the cause of the cult. Occasionally, you'll even see mass suicide. You know, the world is not made completely of rubes. Somebody somewhere, will observe this phenomenon and study or report it as is. Big brother organizations, such as the FBI, is keen on these and very interested in benefiting from social psychology themselves. They are recorded in books too. Ever wonder why the library houses so many cold volumes of paper? This is one contributing reason. You might be interested to verify that sometimes. These brain-washing phenomenon, are not limited to fanatical life-and-death or otherwise dire beliefs. You see it work in all manners of human thought in the general sense. From culture formation to fashion to commercialism. Surely you have heard of Adolf Hitler and his atrocities of genocide? I must alert you, that a single person couldn't commit such a crime. You see, even if you are superman, you can only kill few at a time. You see, it is the people, people like you and me, who commit the killings willingly, by Hitler's teaching. You may say: "no, i won't ever do such stupid thing", well because you are very ignorant about social psychology. It is precisely innocent people like you and (not) me, who were lead by the radical leaders of supreme brain-washing abilities. The innocent mob were fervent in their leader's vision and beliefs to commit anything. You know the concept of war, right? We have two massive body of people committed to cut off other people's head or otherwise stick a knife in their bodies or bomb off an arm or leg. How did that happen? Well, it starts with patriotism for people like you and (not) me. Now, back to topic. In the computing world, there're also bad seeds with colorful creed taking innocent mobs forming cults. The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. Yes? How can we prevent heinous cults then? Stop bending truths. Education and rationalism. I'm starting my own cult to exterminate morons on this earth. Two things are on the top of my agenda: Unixism and Perl. -------- This post is archived at http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/larry_wall_n_cults.html Copyright 2000-2004 Xah Lee. Verbatim Reproduction for non-commercial purposes is hereby granted provided proper credit is given. Xah xah(a)xahlee.org http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html

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Re: what would you like to see in a 2nd edition Nutshell?
by aleaxit＠yahoo.com Jan. 18, 2005

Jan. 18, 2005

Craig Ringer <craig(a)postnewspapers.com.au> wrote: > On Wed, 2004-12-29 at 23:54, Thomas Heller wrote: > > > I found the discussion of unicode, in any python book I have, insufficient. > > I couldn't agree more. I think explicit treatment of implicit > conversion, the role of sysdefaultencoding, the u'' constructor and > unicode() built in, etc would be helpful to many. Thanks! BTW, thanks first and foremost to Holger Krekel (who was a very "activist" tech reviewer and specifically contributed a recipe for this purpose), there's what I believe is a pretty good treatment of Unicode in the Cookbook's forthcoming 2nd edition -- still "insufficient" in some sense, no doubt (it IS just a few pages), but, I believe, pretty good. Nevertheless, I'll ensure I focus on this in the 2nd ed Nutshell, too. > It wouldn't hurt to point C extension authors at things like the 'es' > encoded string format for PyArg_ParseTuple to help them make their code > better behaved with non-ascii text. Good sub-point, thanks. Alex

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Advice to a Junior in High School?
by Howard Nease Jan. 18, 2005

Jan. 18, 2005

Hello, everyone. I would appreciate any advice that someone could give me on my future career path. Here is my situation: I am a bright Junior in a very well-respected private high school, taking almost all AP and accelerated classes. I am HIGHLY interested in technology, more specifically the field of Computer Science and software engineering. I have heard a whole lot about the fact that the market for software engineers nowadays is *HORRIBLE*, and that I should double major or perhaps go into a field of study in which I'm not very interested. I would be devastated were I to find the need to leave computer science. I love the subject, and I've wanted to be a computer scientist ever since I was 12 years old. Does anyone have any advice for me and my future? What should I study in college? Will the market for jobs get better? Do I have any hope at all of finding a decent-paying job in compsci? What languages do you suggest that I study (I'm already studying Python)? thank you very much for your help! --shn

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ftplib strange behaviour
by siggy2＠supereva.it Jan. 18, 2005

Jan. 18, 2005

Hi, I'm using Python 2.3.4 (#53, May 25 2004, 21:17:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] on win32 I've noticed a strange (= not deterministic) behaviour of ftplib.py: sometimes (not always) it fails (after a variable number of minutes from 15 to 130) downloading a 150 MB BINARY file (a big gzipped ascii file) with the traceback reported below. IMVHO this is not a timeout error because my script import timeoutsocket.py (__version__ = "$Revision: 1.1.22.1 $" __author__ = "Timothy O'Malley <timo(a)alum.mit.edu>") to explicitly trap that... and whenever a timeout occurs it is correctly reported and handled (timeout set to 240 seconds) Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\mydir\myscript.py", line 77, in downloadFile result = ftpObject.retrbinary('RETR '+name, f.write) File "C:\Python23\lib\ftplib.py", line 386, in retrbinary return self.voidresp() File "C:\Python23\lib\ftplib.py", line 221, in voidresp resp = self.getresp() File "C:\Python23\lib\ftplib.py", line 207, in getresp resp = self.getmultiline() File "C:\Python23\lib\ftplib.py", line 193, in getmultiline line = self.getline() File "C:\Python23\lib\ftplib.py", line 183, in getline if not line: raise EOFError In ftplib.py I read this comment: [CUT] # Internal: return one line from the server, stripping CRLF. # Raise EOFError if the connection is closed def getline(self): [CUT] May anyone explain me what is this? Could this error be explained only as a ftp server problem? TIA! bye, PiErre

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pygame + py2exe = bad exe. why?
by Erik Bethke Jan. 16, 2005

Jan. 16, 2005

Hello All, Thank you: First of all I want to say thank you all of you posters who have already answered dozens of my questions as I have been learning Python in my lurking & googling. Now for the first time I am stumped: Background: The setup script seems to be working, the files are all copied over to the right place in the dist, and an exe is even produced. (I have included the setup script below anyways. The problem: The exe crashes immediately on startup. Obviously it is failing to find something - but what? During the p2exe's running it reports the following warning: The following modules appear to be missing ['AppKit', 'Foundation', 'objc'] Others have had this problem too: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/97ff… http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/3d1f… This guy says to ignore the warning above and instead include the font (which I manually copied over, but it didn't help): http://www.pick.ucam.org/~ptc24/pygame_py2exe.html As well as 'other files' - which are??? I have also included the full output of py2exe below: I would really, really appreciate someone setting me on the right track to whatever is the current method for producing windows exe's for python 2.3.4 and pygame!! Please. This has to be a straightforward lack of some include directive or some such. Thank you very much, -Erik Bethke www.gopetslive.com REFERENCE MATERIAL BELOW What I am running: I am using: windowsXP pro python 2.3.4 pygame-1.6.win32-py2.3.exe py2exe-0.5.4.win32-py2.3 Here is my setup script: #!/usr/bin/env python from distutils.core import setup import py2exe import glob setup(windows=["mahjong.py"], name='GoPets Mahjong', version='0.3.1', description='Mahjong for GoPets Users', author='Erik Bethke', author_email='erik(a)gopetslive.com', url='www.erikbethke.com', py_modules=['mahjong','background','board','tile'], data_files=[("images/classic", glob.glob("images/classic/*.*"))], #package_dir={'mahjong': 'mahjong'}, #packages=['pygame'], #package_data={'mahjong': ['images/classic/*.*']}, ) Full Verbose Output from py2exe: running py2exe running build_py *** searching for required modules *** *** parsing results *** creating python loader for extension 'pygame.time' creating python loader for extension '_sre' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.joystick' creating python loader for extension 'datetime' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.mixer' creating python loader for extension '_winreg' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.surface' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.key' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.base' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.draw' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.sndarray' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.transform' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.rect' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.rwobject' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.mixer_music' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.constants' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.display' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.movie' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.mouse' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.surfarray' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.cdrom' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.event' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.font' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.surflock' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.image' creating python loader for extension 'pygame.imageext' *** finding dlls needed *** *** create binaries *** *** byte compile python files *** byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\_sre.py to _sre.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\_winreg.py to _winreg.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\datetime.py to datetime.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.base.py to pygame\base.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.cdrom.py to pygame\cdrom.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.constants.py to pygame\constants.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.display.py to pygame\display.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.draw.py to pygame\draw.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.event.py to pygame\event.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.font.py to pygame\font.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.image.py to pygame\image.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.imageext.py to pygame\imageext.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.joystick.py to pygame\joystick.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.key.py to pygame\key.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.mixer.py to pygame\mixer.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.mixer_music.py to pygame\mixer_music.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.mouse.py to pygame\mouse.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.movie.py to pygame\movie.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.rect.py to pygame\rect.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.rwobject.py to pygame\rwobject.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.sndarray.py to pygame\sndarray.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.surface.py to pygame\surface.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.surfarray.py to pygame\surfarray.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.surflock.py to pygame\surflock.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.time.py to pygame\time.pyc byte-compiling E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\build\bdist.win32\winexe\temp\pygame.transform.py to pygame\transform.pyc skipping byte-compilation of build\lib\background.py to background.pyc skipping byte-compilation of build\lib\board.py to board.pyc skipping byte-compilation of build\lib\tile.py to tile.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\UserDict.py to UserDict.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\_strptime.py to _strptime.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\atexit.py to atexit.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\calendar.py to calendar.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\copy.py to copy.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\copy_reg.py to copy_reg.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\linecache.py to linecache.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\locale.py to locale.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\macpath.py to macpath.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\ntpath.py to ntpath.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\os.py to os.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\os2emxpath.py to os2emxpath.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\popen2.py to popen2.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\posixpath.py to posixpath.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\random.py to random.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\re.py to re.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\repr.py to repr.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\__init__.py to pygame\__init__.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\color.py to pygame\color.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\colordict.py to pygame\colordict.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\cursors.py to pygame\cursors.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\macosx.py to pygame\macosx.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\sprite.py to pygame\sprite.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\sysfont.py to pygame\sysfont.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\site-packages\pygame\version.py to pygame\version.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\sre.py to sre.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\sre_compile.py to sre_compile.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\sre_constants.py to sre_constants.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\sre_parse.py to sre_parse.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\stat.py to stat.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\string.py to string.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\types.py to types.pyc skipping byte-compilation of e:\python23\lib\warnings.py to warnings.pyc *** copy extensions *** *** copy dlls *** *** copy data files *** setting sys.winver for 'E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\dist\python23.dll' to 'GoPets Mahjong' copying e:\python23\lib\site-packages\py2exe\run_w.exe -> E:\Python\Mahjong\MahjongProtoType\mahjong\dist\mahjong.exe The following modules appear to be missing ['AppKit', 'Foundation', 'objc']

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Re: import keyword behaviour - performance impact if used multiple times?
by Nick Coghlan Jan. 15, 2005

Jan. 15, 2005

Andrew James wrote: > Hi, > I've been looking around on Google for the answer to this question, and > it's beginning to really bug me. I'm making some design decisions for > some code I'm writing, and I'm wondering whether (Good Design Decisions > apart), there's a performance impact in importing the same module in two > different files. For example, with the following: > > fileA.py > ----------- > import psycopg > class A: > .... > > fileB.py > import psycopg > class B: > a = A() > .... > > If I run fileB, will this import the psycopg twice, or once only? I'm guessing fileB.py should read: import psycopg import A ...etc Anyway, when Python imports modules it stores a reference to them in sys.modules. Any attempts to import the module again are satisfied using the cached version already stored in sys.modules. So, in your example, psycopg is imported once only, and both fileA and fileB would be referring to the same version of psycopg. > Is > this something to do with system modules being singletons? They aren't singletons in the GoF design pattern sense. However, Python's import machinery operates in such a way that it takes effort to get multiple version of the same module into memory at the same time (it *can* be done, but you have to work at it). Cheers, Nick.

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Using Tix and Tkinter
by Harlin Seritt Jan. 13, 2005

Jan. 13, 2005

I am trying to create a simple window using the following code: --code--- import Tix from Tkconstants import * from Tkinter import * root = Tix.Tk() Label(root, text="Hello!").pack() Tix.tixControl().pack() root.mainloop() ---code--- When I run this, I get the following error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "TixTest.py", line 8, in ? Tix.tixControl().pack() AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'tixControl' Any reason why I am not able to pull up this widget to work with it? Thanks, Harlin Seritt

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stopping the sound server in PySol code -- how?
by Lynn Jan. 12, 2005

Jan. 12, 2005

I have a SuSe 9.1 linux box (although this isn't a new issue) with reasonably up to date everything. When I run PySol, it grabs the sound system in a rude and complete way. I don't listen to sound and I NEED my sound system available even if PySol is running. Does anyone have a simple way of ripping the sound functionality our of PySol? I've not enough of a python programmer to deal with this. Everything I've tried has just generated a ton of errors. -- Peace, Love and Absolute Pleasure Crazed Imaginations RHPS cast www.crazedimaginations.net

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OT: spacing of code in Google Groups
by beliavsky＠aol.com Jan. 10, 2005

Jan. 10, 2005

When I copy code from a source file into a Google Groups message, the indentation is messed up, making my Python code illegal and all my code ugly. Are there tricks to avoid this?

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The Industry choice
by Sridhar R Jan. 9, 2005

Jan. 9, 2005

>From technical point of view, I could not understand the the reasoning behind using Java in major companies. Sure that Python, is used in some, but still Java is considered as a sure-job language. After being a python programmer for long time, I consider it painful to learn/use Java now (well, like many I will be forced to do that in my job). What makes such companies to choose Java over dynamic, productive languages like Python? Are there any viable, technical reasons for that?

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