*Python* Power Tools

[Micah]

Anyone know if there is any organized effort underway to implement the
Python equivalent of "Perl Power Tools" <http://ppt.perl.org/>?

If not, would starting this be a waste of effort since:

- it's already being done in Perl?
- cygwin thrives?
- UNIX is already pervasive ?

Or would people really like to claim a pure Python set of UNIX
utilities?

 

[John Machin]

Anyone know if there is any organized effort underway to implement the
Python equivalent of "Perl Power Tools" <http://ppt.perl.org/>?

If not, would starting this be a waste of effort since:

+1 WOFTAM-of-the-year

- it's already being done in Perl?
- cygwin thrives?

For windows users, apart from cygwin, there are a couple of sources of
binaries for *x command-line utilities (unxutils, gnuwin32).

- UNIX is already pervasive ?

Or would people really like to claim a pure Python set of UNIX
utilities?

Sorry, can't parse that last sentence.

 

[Terry Hancock]

Anyone know if there is any organized effort underway to implement the
Python equivalent of "Perl Power Tools" <http://ppt.perl.org/>?

If not, would starting this be a waste of effort since:

+1 WOFTAM-of-the-year [...]

Or would people really like to claim a pure Python set of UNIX
utilities?

Sorry, can't parse that last sentence.

In other words, it'd be a purely aesthetic goal. Which is only a waste
if art is.

But then, I know *I'm* not going to spend time on it. ;-)

 

[Daniel Dittmar]

Anyone know if there is any organized effort underway to implement the
Python equivalent of "Perl Power Tools" <http://ppt.perl.org/>?

If not, would starting this be a waste of effort since:

- it's already being done in Perl?
- cygwin thrives?
- UNIX is already pervasive ?

Or would people really like to claim a pure Python set of UNIX
utilities?

There would be some use for a Python library that implements the
functionality of these tools. Some of it already exists (difflib,
shutil). Some is probably more difficult and less flexible to use from a
lib that from straight python (cut).

Perhaps that could be started either in the Python Cookbook
(http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Cookbook/) or the Python Wiki
(http://wiki.python.org/moin/). Just short explanations of how you would
implement the functionality of various Unix utilities in Python.

Daniel

 

[Ville Vainio]

John> For windows users, apart from cygwin, there are a couple of
John> sources of binaries for *x command-line utilities (unxutils,
John> gnuwin32).

unxutils is my personal favourite - cygwin is way too much an
"environment", and gets broken too easily.

I for one would like to see various shell tools implemented in pure
python, if only to be able to import them as a module and use cross
platform tools that have more power than e.g. 'shutil' or 'os'
functions. The API exposed through the module (as opposed to normal
execution from shell) could also be much richer, providing hooks for
calling own stuff for just-in-time error handling, progress
notification etc.

So no, it doesn't seem like bad idea at all. It's also something that
could evolve gradually, and reach a useful stage (i.e. have several
handy tools) quickly.