python-dev Summary for 2004-11-16 through 2004-11-30

B

Brett C

python-dev Summary for 2004-11-16 through 2004-11-30
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a summary of traffic on the `python-dev mailing list`_ from November
16, 2004 through November 30, 2004. 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 fifty-third summary written by Brett Cannon (Another quarter begins).

To contact me, please send email to brett at python.org ; I do not have the
time to keep up on comp.lang.python and thus do not always catch follow-ups
posted there.

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 new code; otherwise use the current documentation as found at
http://docs.python.org/ . 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.

The `Python Software Foundation`_ is the non-profit organization that holds the
intellectual property for Python. It also tries to forward the development and
use of Python. But the PSF_ cannot do this without donations. You can make a
donation at http://python.org/psf/donations.html . Every penny helps so even a
small donation (you can donate through PayPal or by check) helps.

... _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
... _PSF:
... _Python Software Foundation: http://python.org/psf/

... contents::

... _last summary: http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2004-11-01_2004-11-15.html
... _original text file: http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2004-11-16_2004-11-30.ht



=====================
Summary Announcements
=====================
PyCon_ is coming up! Being held March 23-25 in Washington, DC, registration is
now open at http://www.python.org/pycon/2005/register.html for credit card
users (you can pay by check as well; see the general info page for the conference).

... _PyCon: http://www.python.org/pycon/2005/

=========
Summaries
=========
---------------------------------------------
Would you like the source with your function?
---------------------------------------------
Would you like all functions and classes to contain a __pycode__ attribute that
contains a string of the code used to compile that code object? Well, that
very idea was proposed. You would use a command-line switch to turn on the
feature in order to remove the memory and any performance overhead for the
default case of not needing this feature.

Some might ask why this is needed when inspect.getsource and its ilk exist.
The perk is that __pycode__ would always exist while inspect.getsource is a
best attempt but cannot guarantee it will have the source.

Beyond a suggested name change to __source__, various people have suggested
very different uses. Some see it as a convenient way to save interpreter work
easily and thus not lose any nice code snippet developed interactively. Others
see a more programmatic use (such as AOP "advice" injection). Both are rather
different and led to the thread ending on the suggestion that a PEP be written
that specifies what the intended use-case to make sure that need is properly met.

Contributing threads:
- `__pycode__ extension
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-November/049953.html>`__

===============
Skipped Threads
===============
- PEP 310 Status
- python 2.3.5 release?
look for 2.3.5 possibly in January
- Current CVS, Cygwin and "make test"
- syntactic shortcut - unpack to variably sizedlist
mostly discussed `last summary`_
- Python 2.4, MS .NET 1.1 and distutils
- Trouble installing 2.4
- Looking for authoritative documentation on packages, import & ihooks
no docs exist, but feel free to write some! =)
- String literal concatenation & docstrings
literal string concatenation only works if the newline separating the
strings is not significant to the parser
- print "%X" % id(object()) not so nice
does 'id' need to return only a positive? No, but it would be nice.
- Bug in PyLocale_strcoll
- Multilib strikes back
- File encodings
file.write does not work with Unicode strings; have to decode them to
ASCII on your own
 
M

michele.simionato

Would you like the source with your function?

Yes, since I asked for this feature something like two years ago ;-)
Michele Simionato
 
S

Stelios Xanthakis

Yes, since I asked for this feature something like two years ago ;-)

Well, the main objection seemed to be that we can get the source of a
function one way or another. For functions with a file (1) with
"inspect" , for functions defined dynamically with "exec"(2), by
"knowing what we pass to exec and storing it", and for functions defined
in the interactive prompt (3), by using a higher level IDE/shell that is
not the pure raw_input, but does sophisticated analysis of code fed to
it and which will be responsible for storing functions (!!). Still I
believe it's the job of the core python parser to get this info and
attach it to function objects.

The other problem was whether the source attribute should be saved to
pyc files (or more generally marhsaled together with the function
object). Logically it should. OTOH, for the application I had using
this, I didn't need marshalling source because it stored all the code
(initial functions + functions defined while the application was
running) in python source form. So, I think that in practice one will
use either bytecode or the __source__ feature and not both, but I can't
prove it. 8)

There's a PEP and an --ugly- patch for 2.3.4

+10 ?


Stelios
 

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