python-dev Summary for 2003-10-16 through 2003-11-15

B

Brett C.

python-dev Summary for 2003-10-16 through 2003-11-15
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a summary of traffic on the `python-dev mailing list`_ from
October 16, 2003 through November 15, 2003. It is intended to inform
the wider Python community of on-going developments on the list. To
comment on anything mentioned here, just post to `comp.lang.python`_ (or
email (e-mail address removed) which is a gateway to the newsgroup) with a
subject line mentioning what you are discussing. All python-dev members
are interested in seeing ideas discussed by the community, so don't
hesitate to take a stance on something. And if all of this really
interests you then get involved and join `python-dev`_!

This is the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth summaries written by Brett
Cannon (does anyone even read this?).

All summaries are archived at http://www.python.org/dev/summary/ .

Please note that this summary is written using reStructuredText_ which
can be found at http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html . Any unfamiliar
punctuation is probably markup for reST_ (otherwise it is probably
regular expression syntax or a typo =); you can safely ignore it,
although I suggest learning reST; it's simple and is accepted for `PEP
markup`_ and gives some perks for the HTML output. Also, because of the
wonders of programs that like to reformat text, I cannot guarantee you
will be able to run the text version of this summary through Docutils_
as-is unless it is from the original text file.

... _PEP Markup: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0012.html

The in-development version of the documentation for Python can be found
at http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/ and should be used when looking
up any documentation on something mentioned here. PEPs (Python
Enhancement Proposals) are located at http://www.python.org/peps/ . To
view files in the Python CVS online, go to
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/python/ . Reported bugs
and suggested patches can be found at the SourceForge_ project page.

... _python-dev: http://www.python.org/dev/
... _SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470
... _python-dev mailing list:
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
... _comp.lang.python: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=comp.lang.python
... _Docutils: http://docutils.sf.net/
... _reST:
... _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html

... contents::

... _last summary:
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2003-09-01_2003-09-15.html



=====================
Summary Announcements
=====================
Thanks to midterms and projects my time got eaten up by school. That
postponed when I could work on the twenty-eighth summary so much that
the twenty-ninth was need of being written. So they are combined in
into one to just get the stuff out the door.

The second half of October had some major discussions happen. Guido and
Alex Martelli talking equals pain for me. =)

There was a large discussion on scoping and accessing specific
namespaces. Jeremy Hylton is working on a PEP on the subject so I am
not going to stress myself over summarizing the topic.

A big discussion on the first half of November was about weakrefs and
shutdown. Tim Peters figured out the problem (had to do with weakrefs
referencing things already gc'ed and thus throwing a fit when trying to
gc them later or keeping an object alive because of the weakref). It
was long and complicated, but the problem was solved.

If you have ever wanted to see linked lists used in Python in a rather
elegant way, take a look at Guido's implementation of itertools.tee at
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039593.html .

Europython is going to be held from June 7-9, 2004 in Sweden. See
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/europython/2003-November/003634.html
for more details.

PyCon is slowly moving along. The registration site is being put
through QA and the paper submission system is being worked on. The Call \0
for Proposals (CFP) is still on-going; details at
http://www.python.org/pycon/dc2004/cfp.html . Keep an eye out for when
we announce when the registration and paper submission systems go live.


=========
Summaries
=========
------------------------------------------
How to help with the development of Python
------------------------------------------
In an attempt to make it easy as possible for people to find out how
they can help contribute to Python's development, I wrote an essay on
the topic (mentioned last month, but some revisions have been done). It
covers how Python is developed and how **anyone** can contribute to the
development process. The latest version can be found at
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039473.html .

Any comments on the essay are appreciated.

Contributing threads:
- `Draft of an essay on Python development
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038677.html>`__
- `2nd draft of "How Py is Developed" essay
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039473.html>`__


------------------------------------------------
Generator Expressions: list comp's older brother
------------------------------------------------
If you ever wanted to have the power of list comprehensions but without
the overhead of generating the entire list you have Peter Norvig to
thank initially, and then what seems like the rest of the world, for
generator expressions.

`PEP 289`_ covers all the details, but here is a quick intro. You can
think of generator expressions as list comprehensions that return an
iterator for each item instead a list items. The syntax is practically
the same as list comprehensions as well; just substitute parentheses for
square brackets (most of the time; generator expressions just need
parentheses around them, so being the only argument to a method takes
care of the parentheses requirement).

A quick example is::

(x for x in range(10) if x%2)

returns an iterator that returns the odd numbers from 0 to 10. This
make list comprehensions just syntactic sugar for passing a generator
expression to list() (note how extra parentheses are not needed)::

list(x for x in range(10) is x%2)

Having list comprehensions defined this way also takes away the dangling
item variable for the 'for' loop. Using that dangling variable is now
discouraged and will be made illegal at some point.

For complete details, read the PEP.

... _PEP 289: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0289.html

Contributing threads:
- `decorate-sort-undecorate
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038652.html>`__
- `accumulator display syntax
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038804.html>`__
- `listcomps vs. for loops
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039081.html>`__
- `PEP 289: Generator Expressions (second draft)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039356.html>`__


---------------------
list.sorted() is born
---------------------
After the addition of the 'key' argument to list.sort(), people began to
clamor for list.sort() to return self. Guido refused to do give in, so
a compromise was reached. 'list' now has a class method named 'sorted';
pass it an iterable and it will return a sorted list.

Contributing threads:
- `decorate-sort-undecorate
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038811.html>`__
- `inline sort option
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038825.html>`__
- `sort() return value
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038855.html>`__
- `copysort patch
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038947.html>`__


------------------------------------
Recursion limit in re is now history
------------------------------------
Thanks to Gustavo Niemeyer the recursion limit in the re module has now
be removed!

Contributing threads:
- `SRE recursion
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038839.html>`__
- `SRE recursion removed
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038962.html>`__


-----------------------------------
Copying iterators one day at a time
-----------------------------------
Reiteration for iterators came up as part of the immense discussion on
generator expressions. The difficulty of doing it generally came up.
This lead to Alex Martelli proposing magic method support for __copy__
in iterators that have want to allow making a copy of itself. This was
written down as `PEP 323`_.

As an interim solution, itertools grew a new function: tee. It takes in
an iterable and returns two or more iterators which independently
iterate over the iterable.

... _PEP 323: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0323.html

Contributing threads:
- `Reiterability
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/038969.html>`__
- `cloning iterators again
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039593.html>`__
- `... python/nondist/peps pep-0323.txt, NONE ...
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039656.html>`__
- `Guido's Magic Code
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039819.html>`__


-----------------------------------------------------
Returning Py_(None, True, False) now easier than ever!
------------------------------------------------------
Py_RETURN_NONE, Py_RETURN_TRUE, and Py_RETURN_FALSE have been added to
Python 2.4. They are macros for returning the singleton mentioned in
the name. Documentation has yet to be written (my fault).

Contributing threads:
- `How to spell Py_return_None and friends
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039000.html>`__
- `python/dist/src/Include object.h, 2.121, ...
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039026.html>`__


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
'String substitutions'/'dict interpolation'/'replace %(blah)s with $blah'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The idea of introducing string substitutions using '$' came up. Guido
said that if this was made a built-in feature it would have to wait
until Python 3. He was receptive to moving the functionality to a
module, though.

Barry Warsaw pasted code into
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039369.html
that handles string substitutions.

Contributing threads:
- `Can we please have a better dict interpolation syntax?
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039324.html>`__


------------------------------------------
"reduce() just doesn't get enough mileage"
------------------------------------------
That quote comes from Guido during the discussion over whether 'product'
should be added as an accumulator function built-in like 'sum'. The
idea was shot down and conversation quickly turned to whether 'reduce'
should stay in the language (the consensus was "no" since the function
does not read well and its functionality can easily be done with a 'for'
loop).

A larger discussion on what built-ins should eventually disappear will
be covered in the next Summary.

Contributing threads:
- `product()
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039326.html>`__


-----------
PyPy update
-----------
The PyPy_ development group sent an update on their happenings to the
list. Turns out they are trying to get funding from the European Union.
They are also fairly close to getting a working version (albeit with
some bootstrapping from CPython, but it will still be damn cool what
they have pulled off even with this caveat).

They also announced a sprint they are holding in Amsterdam from Dec.
14-21. More info can be found at
http://codespeak.net/moin/pypy/moin.cgi/AmsterdamSprint .

... _PyPy: http://codespeak.net/pypy/

Contributing threads:
- `PyPy: sprint and news
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039579.html>`__


----------------------------
Never say Python is finished
----------------------------
I asked python-dev for masters thesis ideas. I great number of
possibilities were put out. If anyone out there is curious to see what
some people would like to see done for Python in terms of a large
project check the thread out.

Contributing threads:
- `Looking for master thesis ideas involving Python
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039763.html>`__


---------------------------------
Rough draft of Decimal object PEP
---------------------------------
Facundo Batista has posted a rough draft of a PEP for a decimal object
that is being worked on in the sandbox. Comment on it on
`comp.lang.python`_ if this interests you.

Contributing threads:
- `prePEP: Decimal data type
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-October/039870.html>`__


----------------------------------------------------------
Relations of basestring and bye-bye operator.isMappingType
----------------------------------------------------------
The idea of introducing relatives of basestring for numbers came from
Alex Martelli. That idea was shot down for not being needed once the
merger of int and long occurs.

The point that operator.isMappingType is kind of broken came up. Both
Alex and Raymond Hettinger would not mind seeing it disappear. No one
objected. It is still in CVS at the moment, but I would not count on it
necessarily sticking around (although there are rumblings that there
might be a way to fix it so it is partially useful).


Contributed threads:
- `reflections on basestring -- and other abstract basetypes
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/039885.html>`__
- `operator.isMappingType
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/040122.html>`__


---------------------------------------------------------
Why one checks into the trunk before a maintenance branch
---------------------------------------------------------
The question of whether checking a change into a maintenance branch
before applying it to the main trunk was acceptable came up. The short
answer is "no". Basically the trunk gets more testing than the
maintenance branches and thus the patch should have to prove its
stability first. Only then should it go into a maintenance branch.

The same goes for changes to code that will eventually disappear in the
trunk. Someone might be planning on removing some code, but if that
person falls off the face of the earth the code will still be there.
That means applying the patch to the code that is scheduled to disappear
is still a good idea.

Contributing threads:
- `check-in policy, trunk vs maintenance branch
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/039903.html>`__


-----------------------
New reversed() built-in
-----------------------
There was a new built-in named reversed(), and all rejoiced after giving
the creator a thorough beating.

Straight from the function's doc string: "reverse iterator over values
of the sequence". `PEP 322`_ has the relevant details on this new built-in.

... _PEP 322: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0322.html

Contributing threads:
- `PEP 322: Reverse Iteration
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/039924.html>`__


---------------------------
Cleaning the built-in house
---------------------------
Guido asked what built-ins should be considered for deprecation.
Instantly intern, coerce, and apply came up. apply already had a
PendingDeprecationWarning and that will stay for the next release or
two. intern and coerce, though, did not have any major champions
(intern had some fans, but just for the functionality).

Guido did state that none of these built-in will be removed any time
soon. If they do get deprecated it does not lead to immediate removal.
Python 3, though, takes the gloves off and that can see them just
completely disappear.

Contributing threads:
- `Deprecating obsolete builtins
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/039994.html>`__


----------------------------------------
Passing arguments to str.(encode|decode)
----------------------------------------
The idea of allowing keyword arguments be passed to any specified
encoder/decoder was brought up by Raymond Hettinger. It seemed like an
idea that was supported. The idea of specifying the encoder or decoder
based on the actual object instead of the current way of specifying a
string that is passed to the registered codec search functions was
suggested.

Nothing has been finalized on this idea as of now.

Contributing threads:
- `Optional arguments for str.encode /.decode
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/040055.html>`__



------------------------------------------------------
Where, oh where, to move the good stuff out of string?
------------------------------------------------------
It looks like ascii_* and possibly maketrans from the string module will
be tacked on to the str type so that the string module can finally be
removed from the language. It has not been pronounced upon, but it
looks like that is what the BDFL is leaning towards.

Issues of using the methods of str as unbound methods did come up. As
it stands you cannot pass a unicode object to str.upper and thus there
is no one uppercasing function as there is in the string module. This
issue brought up the problem of Unicode and locale ties and collation
(how to sort things).

Contributing threads:
- `other "magic strings" issues
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/040067.html>`__


-----------------------------------------
Supported versions of Sleepycat for bsddb
-----------------------------------------
The basic answer is 3.2 - 4.2 should work when you compile from source.

Contributing threads:
- `which sleepycat versions do we support in 2.3.* ?
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/040196.html>`__


-----------------------------
Sets now at blazing C speeds!
-----------------------------
Raymond Hettinger implemented the sets API in C! The new built-ins are
set (which replaces sets.Set) and frozenset (which replaces
sets.ImmutableSet). The APIs are the same as the sets module sans the
name change from ImmutableSet to frozenset.

Contributing threads:
- `set() and frozenset()
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/040253.html>`__
 
J

John Roth

Brett C. said:
python-dev Summary for 2003-10-16 through 2003-11-15
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth summaries written by Brett
Cannon (does anyone even read this?).

I certainly do! And thanks for the work - I find it very interesting.

John Roth
 
W

Wilk

Brett C. said:
python-dev Summary for 2003-10-16 through 2003-11-15
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a summary of traffic on the `python-dev mailing list`_ from
October 16, 2003 through November 15, 2003. It is intended to inform
the wider Python community of on-going developments on the list. To
comment on anything mentioned here, just post to `comp.lang.python`_
(or email (e-mail address removed) which is a gateway to the newsgroup)
with a subject line mentioning what you are discussing. All python-dev
members are interested in seeing ideas discussed by the community, so
don't hesitate to take a stance on something. And if all of this
really interests you then get involved and join `python-dev`_!

This is the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth summaries written by Brett
Cannon (does anyone even read this?).

Yes we do, you could ask this question in the end of the summary ;-)...
And thanks also do rst-docutils, it's very clear.
 
T

Troels Therkelsen

This is the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth summaries written by Brett
Cannon (does anyone even read this?).

I do. As said elsewhere in this thread, and I agree with this, the summaries
you write have just the perfect mix of cold facts and editorial musings. I
lurk on python-dev, so I know just how hard it is to keep track of everything,
and I must say I think you're doing a great job.

/Troels Therkelsen
 
G

GerritM

Brett C. said:
python-dev Summary for 2003-10-16 through 2003-11-15
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth summaries written by Brett
Cannon (does anyone even read this?).

Yes, absolutely, every time. Normally I go to the website, to read the
formatted version. This time I could not yet find it, so I read the raw text
version.

keep up the good work, kind regards, Gerrit
 
B

Brett C.

GerritM said:
Yes, absolutely, every time. Normally I go to the website, to read the
formatted version. This time I could not yet find it, so I read the raw text
version.

Sorry about that. I just pushed the new pages to the web site. One
of these days I need to write a script to do all of the standard stuff
that I do for each summary so that I stop having minor screw-ups like
this.
keep up the good work, kind regards, Gerrit


Thanks, I'll try.

-Brett
 
A

Aahz

This is the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth summaries written by Brett
Cannon (does anyone even read this?).

Hey, I've sent you enough corrections on your drafts, do I need to read
the final copy, too? ;-)
 
B

Brett C.

Hey, I've sent you enough corrections on your drafts, do I need to read
the final copy, too? ;-)

=) Sorry, Aahz. You do deserve recognition as the second most
prolific editor of the Summaries. But I really should just be
thanking everyone who has ever helped me correct the darn thing. My
adversity to proof-reading would probably lead to a sub-par Summary if
other people were not willing to pick up my slack and tell me where I
need to fix things.

-Brett
 

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