Comments wanted: Proposed change to install layout

[VanL]

There is a proposal on Python-dev right now (championed by me) to harmonize the 
install layout for Python between platforms. This change would be most 
noticeable on Windows. Specifically, using Python 3.3 or above: 

1) the 'Scripts' directory would change to 'bin';
2) python.exe would move to the 'bin' directory; and
3) the installer for Windows would get the optional ability to add this 
directory to the PATH.

Please reply if this would help you or harm you, and how.

Thanks,

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Tuple Question

[VanL]

Hello,
Why is this?
>>> class MyTuple(tuple):
... def __getitem__(self, name):
... return tuple.__getitem__(self, name)
...
>>> data = (1,2,3,4,5)
>>> t = MyTuple(data)
>>> t[0]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
  File "", line 3, in __getitem__
TypeError: descriptor '__getitem__' requires a 'tuple' object but 
received a 'int'

Thanks,
VL
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Trying to find zip codes/rest example

[VanL]

Hello,

A couple months ago there was an example posted in a blog of a rest 
interface for validating zip codes.  If I recall correctly, the backend 
validator was written in python.

The validator demo page had a single text input; next to the text input 
would appear either a green check or a red X depending on whether the 
zip code was valid.

On the backend, the explanation of the demo included a discussion of 
using HTTP status codes (200 for a valid zip, 406? for invalid) so that 
the service could be used from a console as well.

I now cannot find this demo and the associated discussion.  Does anybody 
remember this demo and where I might be able to find it?

Thanks,

VanL

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Re: Trying to find zip codes/rest example

[VanL]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> No, but does the localflavor entry on
> http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/docs/add_ons.txt?rev=5118
> help? (found with Google) 

Thanks, but no.  A friend asked for advice about implementing a 
password-checking interface; I remembered that the method described in 
the article seemed particularly slick.  I wanted to refer it to him as a 
sample "best practices" link.


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Re: [PyCON-Organizers] Next PyCon Organizers' Meeting Tuesday, 11 September

[VanL]

Laura Creighton wrote:
> Does this mean that if you do not have a google account, and do not
> want one, there is no way to join the meeting?  

No. Any jabber/xmpp account will do fine. Google is just the 
highest-profile provider of jabber accounts. There is a list of other 
account providers on jabber.org. Alternatively, there is jabber server 
software (including Free Software) that you can run on a server that you 
control. After setting that up, you can use your own account on your own 
server to join the meeting.

Thanks,

Van
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Intellectual Property Talk at PyCon

[VanL]

I will be presenting a talk at PyCon, "The Absolute Minimum an Open 
Source Developer Needs to Know About Intellectual Property."  I want to 
tailor this talk so that it is interesting to as many attendees as possible.

I am familiar with a lot of the internal divisions in the Free 
Software/Open Source community.  My intent is not to advocate for or 
against any specific position, but rather to promote a common 
understanding and address specific situations that developers may 
encounter.  In other words, a problem/solution approach, instead of an 
argumentative approach.

With that in mind, I had in mind the following subjects:

- A brief primer on intellectual property (what are patents, trademarks, 
copyrights, and trade secrets?)

- What to do when you have an idea you want to develop, but you are 
working for somebody else

- What it means to incorporate GPL'd modules into your own code

- Ways to protect ideas that you have put into a proprietary software 
product

- Ways to avoid, work around, or mitigate the effect of software patents

- Licensing, using, and distributing software (comparing and contrasting 
the GPL, BSD, and Python licenses)

I am interested in hearing about 1) other topics of interest, and 2) the 
relative level of interest in each topic.  To keep within the time 
limits for my talk, I intend to address the most popular topics in 
roughly the order of their popularity.


Thanks,

Van Lindberg

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Re: Intellectual Property Talk at PyCon

[VanL]

Robert Kern wrote:

> I don't have any suggestions for other material to cover, but I'd like to
> express my interest in keeping this in your agenda. This is an issue that 
> crops
> up again and again with ill-informed opinions all around.

Thanks for the feedback.  +1 for discussing GPL incorporation.


> Of course, it would be nice if what you say agrees with my opinions on the
> subject, but I'll let you slide if you at least say something sensible.  ;-)

I will try :)

Van


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Re: Is there any python lib for NAT transversal?

[VanL]

Jean-Paul Calderone wrote:
> Divmod Vertex is such a library (it does a few other things as well), but
> it is not nearly complete and has little documentation.

Can you comment on the differences and similarities between Q2Q and 
Jingle? They appear to be targeting similar problems.

Thanks,

Van

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Re: Pycon disappointment

[VanL]

Bruce,

I can't speak to your issues with the normal sessions, but your bad 
experience with the lightning talks was my fault. And, in apologizing to 
you, I hope that all the others on this thread who have expressed 
similar sentiments hear me too.

Ultimately, we miscalculated in certain respects. It wasn't any 
particular thing, but rather there were a couple of issues that came 
together here:

1 - We had an incredible amount of sponsorship. Higher than expected by 
anyone. This wasn't bad in itself (I think it was very good!), but it 
set the stage for some of the issues later.

2 - As part of the sponsor package, we promised the sponsors priority 
for a lightning talk. Our thought was that the sponsor lightning talks 
from last year were well received, so they probably would be this year 
as well. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case - at least 
having *that many* was not well received.

3 - We had a very limited time when some of the sponsors would still be 
here - basically Friday and Saturday. The major problem on Saturday is 
that we *had* to stack the sponsor talks that way or else we would not 
fulfill our obligations to our sponsors.

We offered lightning talks this year because a) we didn't know how well 
the expo hall would go, and b) that was the only way for the sponsors to 
connect with the audience last year - so we assumed that it might be the 
same way this year. This was discussed and generally agreed-to in 
September.  IIRC, the sponsor lightnings were not an issue that was 
subject to much debate back then, most people were accustomed to the 
generally positive 2007 experience.*

I think that with the success of the expo hall, we can remove the 
lightning talks from the sponsor benefits for next year, and at this 
point I am in favor of doing so.

Personally, I was *very* disappointed that some of our sponsors didn't 
prepare or even show up for their assigned slots. I think that the 
sponsors are members of our community, and I expect them to act as such. 
Taking slots and not showing up - or not showing up prepared - isn't how 
I would hope a community member would act.

Thanks,

Van


*(On the other hand, the Diamond keynotes were the subject of 
substantial debate - but I thought those went well; I would like to keep 
them for next year.)




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Re: 2.6, 3.0, and truly independent intepreters

[VanL]

Jesse Noller wrote:

> Even luminaries such as Brian Goetz and many, many others have pointed
> out that threading, as it exists today is fundamentally difficult to
> get right. Ergo the "renaissance" (read: echo chamber) towards
> Erlang-style concurrency.

I think this is slightly missing what Andy is saying. Andy is trying
something that would look much more like Erlang-style concurrency than
classic threads - "green processes" to use someone else's term.

AFAIK, Erlang "processes" aren't really processes at the OS level.
Instead, they are named processes because they only communicate through
message passing. When multiple "processes" are running in the same
os-level-multi-threaded interpreter, the interpreter cheats to make the
message passing fast.

I think Andy is thinking along the same lines. With a Python
subinterpreter per thread, he is suggesting intra-process message
passing as a way to get concurrency.

Its actually not too far from what he is doing already, but he is
fighting OS-level shared library semantics to do it. Instead, if Python
supported a per-subinterpreter GIL and per-subinterpreter state, then
you could theoretically get to a good place:

- You only initialize subinterpreters if you need them, so
single-process Python doesn't pay a large (any?) penalty
- Intra-process message passing can be fast, but still has the
no-shared-state benefits of the Erlang concurrency model
- There are fewer changes to the Python core, because the GIL doesn't go
away

No, this isn't whole-hog free threading (or safe threading), there are
restrictions that go along with this model - but there would be benefits.

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Re: Searching for pyvm

[VanL]

Vladimir G. Ivanovic wrote:
> I'm looking for the sources to pyvm, a python virtual machine
> implementation which can run Python 2.4 bytecode.

The tarball for pyvm returns a 404, but you can still get the code to
pyvm by getting archive.org's copy:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061012230953/http://students.ceid.upatras.gr/~sxanth/pyvm/pyvm-1.2.tar.bz2

Thanks,

Van

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Re: Billing system written in python

[VanL]

AC Perdon wrote:

I was thinking of using django but Im more looking in to a
ready made billing system that I will just do some tweaking and fine 
tunning to meet our need. like jbilling.


Look at Fivedash (fivedash.com), it may be what you need.

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PyCon Early Bird is Ending Soon!

[VanL]

Do you have a year-end hole in your training budget? Or will the
improved economy let you finally attend a work conference? Come to sunny
and warm Atlanta in February for PyCon 2010. Early bird registration
ends on January 6.

Register: https://us.pycon.org/2010/register/

See the talks: http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/talks/
Get trained at a tutorial:  http://us.pycon.org/2010/tutorials/

Also see the five (or more!) talks that people can't miss at PyCon:

PyOraGeek: PyCon pre-favorites


Pyright: PyCon pre-favorites, the Carl T. edition:


Aftermarket Pipes: Five Pycon 2010 Talks I Need to See:


Jessenoller.com: PyCon 2010: Talks I want to see:


The Third Bit: Five PyCon Talks I Want To See:


See you at PyCon!

Register: https://us.pycon.org/2010/register/

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The END (of PyCon early bird registration) is NEAR!

[VanL]

Today is the last day of registration for PyCon 2010 at the early bird
rate. Registration at the early bird rate is still good as long as it is
January 6 somewhere in the world.

Register now!  - https://us.pycon.org/2010/register/

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PyCon is coming! Tomorrow, Feb. 10 is the last day for pre-conference rates

[VanL]

PyCon is coming! Tomorrow (February 10th) is the last day for
pre-conference rates. You can register for PyCon online at:



Register while it is still Feb. 10th somewhere in the world and rest
easy in the knowledge that within 10 days you will enjoying the company
of some of the finest Python hackers in the world.

As an additional bonus, PyCon this year will be in Atlanta, making it an
ideal location for those looking for a way to escape the late winter
blizzards in the northeastern United States, or the dreary fog of the
Bay area.

See you at PyCon 2010!

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Help influence which tutorials are given at PyCon 2011

[VanL]

PyCon is made up of a number of different parts, each with its own 
goals. For the talks presented during the conference portion of PyCon, 
we go for both breadth and quality. There are enough different sessions 
and different tracks that each person can customize their PyCon 
experience according to their interests.


For tutorials, the goal is slightly different. We want to present 
tutorials that help developers deal effectively with their most common 
day-to-day challenges.


We categorized the various tutorial proposals into a number of broad 
buckets. You can vote on which topics you would like to see at PyCon 
2011! We will take this information into account when deciding which 
tutorials will be presented.


You can view the poll at .

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Re: guessing file type

[VanL]

Seldon wrote:
Hello,  I need to determine programmatically a file type from its 
content/extension (much like the "file" UNIX command line utility)


I searched for a suitable Python library module, with little luck. Do 
you know something useful ?


Python-magic (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-magic/0.1) wraps 
libmagic -- the same thing that "file" uses -- but getting it on windows 
is a pain. I have never been able to do it, anyway.


A more cross-platform library with a similar scope is hachoir. Still 
seems to be available from PyPI, but the website seems to have fallen 
off the 'net.


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Extracting text from html

[VanL]

Hello all,

Does anyone know of a good tool to get a minimally-formatted text 
document out of an html document? Something along the lines of what you 
would get with a lynx -dump, but in Python.


I have lxml installed, so I can roll my own if I need to. However, this 
seemed like the sort of thing that someone would have solved already.


Thanks,

Van

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Survey: Does your company use Python? Do you know a company that uses Python?

[VanL]

This is a survey to find as many companies using Python as we can. You 
can see the survey below:




You don't need to work at the company to add it to this list! We will 
filter for duplicates.


The answers to this survey will be kept private. If you still don't want 
to identify yourself, no problem! We just want to know where Python is 
being used.



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Graph library recommendations for large graphs

[VanL]

I am working on a project that will require building and querying large 
graph objects (initially 8M nodes, 30-40M edges; eventually 40M nodes, 
100M edges). NetworkX seems to be the most popular, but I am concerned 
that a dict representation for nodes would use too much memory -- my 
initial tests suggest that a graph with 3M nodes and 12M edges creates 
substantial memory pressure on my machine.


Can anybody who has worked with large graphs before give a recommendation?

Thanks,

Van

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