python-dev Summary for 2005-01-16 through 2005-01-31

[Brett C]

=====================
Summary Announcements
=====================

-----------------------------------------
School sure likes to destroy my free time
-----------------------------------------

A month late, that much closer to having this hectic quarter being over. Sorry
for being so delinquent with this summary but school has kept me busy and
obviously the Real World has to take precedence over volunteer work. Now if I
could only get paid for doing this... =)

And if you hate the summaries being late, you could do it yourself. This is
not meant to be a flippant comment! I am always willing to hand over
development of the summaries to anyone who is willing to do a comparable job.
If you are interested feel free to email me. I have now made this a permanent
offer in the header in case someone comes along later and decides they want to
do this.


----------------------
RSS feed now available
----------------------

Thanks entirely to one of my predecessors, A.M. Kuchling, the python-dev
Summaries are available as an `RSS feed`_. The feed contains the titles of
every summary and so will be updated with the newest summaries as soon as they
are posted online. A full text feed will eventually be available.


----------
New format
----------

I have done a thorough restructuring of the boilerplate and the Summary
Announcements section for the Summaries. The purpose of this is to make
finding information in the boilerplate much easier. It also keeps consistency
by sectioning off everything as in the Summary section.

The other reason is for the ``contents`` directive in reST_. This will provide
a more thorough table of contents for the web version of the summary at the
very top of the summaries. This will allow people to jump directly to the
section of the Summary they care about the most. Obviously this perk only
exists in the HTML version.

Lastly, the typical boilerplate for each Summary has now been moved to the
bottom. This was at the request of a regular reader who I would like to keep
happy. =) It also seems reasonable since once you have read through it once
chances are you are not going to read it again so might as well move it out of
the way.

Then again I could be totally wrong about all of this and manage to alienate
every person who reads the summaries regularly. =)




=======
Summary
=======

---------------------
Python 2.3.5 released
---------------------

Consider how late this summary is I bet you already knew Python 2.3.5 was
already out the door. =)

With Python 2.4 out in the world this means there is a very high probability
2.3.6 will never exist and this marks the end of the 2.3 branch.

Contributing threads:
- `2.3.5 delayed til next week
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051140.html>`__
- `2.3 BRANCH FREEZE imminent!
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051277.html>`__
- `RELEASED Python 2.3.5, release candidate 1
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051304.html>`__


------------------------------------------------------
Making magic type conversion methods act like __str__
------------------------------------------------------

Walter Dörwald discovered that when you subclass 'unicode' and call unicode()
on an instance of the subclass it will not call the implementation of
__unicode__ of the subclass but instead will call unicode.__unicode__ . When
in the same scenario with strings, though, str() calls the subclass' __str__
method. Turns out 'int' and 'float' act like 'unicode' while 'complex' acts
like 'str'.

So who is right? Docs say 'str' is wrong, but this is mainly an artifact of
pre-2.2 inability to subclass types. Turns out 'str' is acting properly.
`Patch #1109424`_ implements the proper semantics and will eventually go in for
2.5 (won't touch 2.4 since it is a semantic change).

... _Patch #1109424: http://www.python.org/sf/1109424

Contributing threads:
- `__str__ vs. __unicode__
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051175.html>`__


---------------------------------------------
Speeding up function calls to C API functions
---------------------------------------------

Neal Norwitz posted the patch found at http://www.python.org/sf/1107887 to help
with function calls to C code. The idea is to expand the family of values used
in PyMethodDef.ml_flags for argument types to include specifying the number of
minimum and maximum number of arguments. This can provide a speedup by
allowing the eval loop to unpack everything in the C stack and skip packing
arguments in a tuple.

But not everyone was sure it was worth the extra need to specify all of this
for functions. Regardless of that and any other objections this would be more
of a Python 3000 thing.

Which also led to a quick shift in topic to how Python 3.0 will be developed.
Guido said it would be piece-meal. Read
http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html for why.

Contributing threads:
- `Speed up function calls
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051251.html>`__
- `Moving towards Python 3.0
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051355.html>`__


------------------------------------------------------------
How to handle memory allocation with the presence of threads
------------------------------------------------------------

Evan Jones has been working on a patch to allow the garbage collector to free
up memory of small objects. This led him to ask questions in terms of memory
usage in the face of threading at the C level. While the GIL usually needs to
be held for any operation that touches Python code, he was not sure if this
held for the memory API.

Tim Peters clarified all of this by pointing out the documentation in the C API
manual about the GIL. In a nutshell the memory API is not exempt from needing
to hold the GIL, so hold it.

It was also pointed out there was a bunch of code to allow people to mix usage
of PyMem_* functions with PyObject_* functions. That was purely done for
backwards-compatibility back in the day. Mixing these two APIs for memory is
very bad. Don't do it!

Contributing threads:
- `Improving the Python Memory Allocator
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051255.html>`__
- `Python Interpreter Thread Safety?
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051335.html>`__


--------------------------
Slicing iterators rejected
--------------------------

Nick Coghlan proposed allowing iterators to be sliced liked other sequence
types. That way something like ``enumerate("ABCD")[1:]`` would work.

But Guido rejected it. With itertools.islice existence it does not provide new
functionality. Plus "Iterators are for single sequential access" according to
Guido, and thus should not be confused with sequences.

Contributing threads:
- `Allowing slicing of iterators
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-January/051257.html>`__


===============
Skipped Threads
===============

- redux: fractional seconds in strptime
- how to test behavior wrt an extension type?
- Strange segfault in Python threads and linux kernel 2.6
- Unix line endings required for PyRun* breaking embedded Python
- Zen of Python
- PyCon: The Spam Continues ;-)
- Patch review: [ 1094542 ] add Bunch type to collections module



========
Epilogue
========

------------
Introduction
------------

This is a summary of traffic on the `python-dev mailing list`_ from
January 16, 2005 through January 31, 2005.
It is intended to inform the wider Python community of on-going
developments on the list on a semi-monthly basis. An archive_ of
previous summaries is available online.

An `RSS feed`_ of the titles of the summaries is available.
You can also watch comp.lang.python or comp.lang.python.announce for
new summaries (or through their email gateways of python-list or
python-announce, respectively, as found at http://mail.python.org).

This is the fifty-seventh summary written by Brett Cannon (grad schools are
actually crazy enough to accept me =).

To contact me, please send email to brett at python.org. Do *not*
post to comp.lang.python if you wish to reach me.

The `Python Software Foundation`_ is the non-profit organization that
holds the intellectual property for Python. It also tries to advance
the development and use of Python. If you find the python-dev Summary
helpful please consider making a donation. You can make a donation at
http://python.org/psf/donations.html . Every penny helps so even a
small donation with a credit card, check, or by PayPal helps.

If you are looking for a way to expand your knowledge of Python's
development and inner-workings, consider writing the python-dev
Summaries yourself! I am willing to hand over the reins to someone
who is willing to do a comparable or better job of writing the
Summaries. If you are interested, please email me at
brett at python.org.


--------------------
Commenting on Topics
--------------------

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`_!


-------------------------
How to Read the Summaries
-------------------------

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 for 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.

Please note that this summary is written using reStructuredText_.
Any unfamiliar punctuation is probably markup for reST_ (otherwise it
is probably regular expression syntax or a typo =); you can safely
ignore it. I do suggest learning reST, though; it's simple and is
accepted for `PEP markup`_ and can be turned into many different
formats like HTML and LaTeX. Unfortunately, even though reST is
standardized, the wonders of programs that like to reformat text do
not allow me to 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`_.

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

... _Docutils: http://docutils.sf.net/
... _reST:
... _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html
... _PSF:
... _Python Software Foundation: http://python.org/psf/

... _last summary: http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2005-01-01_2005-01-15.html
... _original text file: http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2005-01-16_2005-01-31.ht
... _archive: http://www.python.org/dev/summary/
... _RSS feed: http://www.python.org/dev/summary/channews.rdf

 

[Michele Simionato]

Brett Cannon:

Lastly, the typical boilerplate for each Summary has now been moved to the
bottom. This was at the request of a regular reader who I would like to keep
happy. =) It also seems reasonable since once you have read through it once
chances are you are not going to read it again so might as well move it out of
the way.

+1 for this idea. The summary looks much better now
Keep the good work going,

Michele Simionato

 

[Steve Holden]

Michele Simionato wrote [on c.l.py]:

Brett Cannon:

[... python-dev summary ... boilerplate change ...]

+1 for this idea. The summary looks much better now
Keep the good work going,

Sorry, but i have to disagree. I hope you won't take this reply
personally, Michele, since it's directed to all c.l.py readers, as well
as (particularly) at Python users who [unlike you] are mostly take and
rather less give. Although this is inherently the nature of open source,
in certain cases this can be taken too far.

I have a long history of doing things, and an equally long history
giving up doing them. This stems from a personal belief that organic
growth (IMHO the healthiest type) will only be engendered by variety.

I was the Chairman of the Sun UK User Group once.

When I was elected I said I would serve for two years, and when I
resigned after two years many people said to me "Steve, please
reconsider your decision". I observed, perhaps somewhat cynically, that
most of the people who said this were motivated by the wish to avoid the
pain of locating and electing a new chairman.

Guess what ... when I refused to reconsider they found a new chairman,
who was at least as good as me (I thought he was better), and life
carried on. If you were to ask a member of the Sun UK User Group now the
name of their second chairman I'd be very surprised if they had any idea
who the hell Steve Holden was. (Historical note: the first chairman was
Chris Brown, and nobody will remember him either).

Now, the reason for this specific rant is this: I can tell a cry for
help when I see one. Brett has done a magnificent job of providing
python-dev summaries since Andrew decided he'd had enough, and he is to
be congratulated for it. I managed to offload another bunch of work on
him (moderation of various troublesome PyCon mailing lists), but at
least I was able to recompense him by letting him into PyCon for nothing.

I can say this because I am confident that nobody will even think of
suggesting that Brett's contribution to the Python community doesn't
entitle him to a free place at PyCon. I suspect most readers of this
list would feel the same about Guido (I certainly hope so, because he
too is a free-loader this year . I would actually like a free place
at PyCon to represent recognition of significant contributions to the
Python community, but there is a conflict here with another of my goals
(raising funds for the PSF).

But frankly, I think it's time someone else stood up and said "Brett,
you've done a magnificent job. Hesitant though I am about replacing you,
I would like to volunteer for the task, because only when you are free
from the burden of writing the python-dev summaries will we see what
else you are capable of". Since I am at best an intermittent reader of
python-dev I can say this without fear of having to stand up myself.

Oops, I'm rambling. I guess what I'm trying to say boils down to "Ask
not what the Python community can do for you ...", and anyone who can't
provide the remainder of the analogy is too young to consider themselves
a victim of this post, and can claim a free ticket until they are old
enough ti understand what history is.

I like to think that although I don't make frequent checkins to the code
base I do *something* to engender the Python community spirit (though I
don't consider my own interpretation of that spirit to uniquely define
it), and I'm damned sure Brett has done his share.

It would be great if just a *few* more people who are currently
consuming the fruits of our labors would stop sitting on the sidelines
shouting "great job!" and roll their sleeves up.

I hope I'll be able to put these remarks in a corporate context for
PyCon - which astute readers will have noticed will be my last PyCon as
chairman. I am happy to say that Andrew Kuchling has finally admitted
his lust for power and confirmed that he is prepared to act as chairman
for 2006, and I wish him well. More later

one-more-thing-given-up-ly y'rs - steve

 

[Gerrit Muller]

Brett,

----------
New format
----------

I have done a thorough restructuring of the boilerplate and the Summary
Announcements section for the Summaries. The purpose of this is to make
finding information in the boilerplate much easier. It also keeps
consistency by sectioning off everything as in the Summary section.

The other reason is for the ``contents`` directive in reST_. This will
provide a more thorough table of contents for the web version of the
summary at the very top of the summaries. This will allow people to
jump directly to the section of the Summary they care about the most.
Obviously this perk only exists in the HTML version.

Lastly, the typical boilerplate for each Summary has now been moved to
the bottom. This was at the request of a regular reader who I would
like to keep happy. =) It also seems reasonable since once you have
read through it once chances are you are not going to read it again so
might as well move it out of the way.

Then again I could be totally wrong about all of this and manage to
alienate every person who reads the summaries regularly. =)

<...snip...>

as always I do appreciate your summaries. This new format, with the
boilerplate at the end certainly is an improvement. However, I always
use your news announcement as a trigger to read the version at
<http://www.python.org/dev/summary/<dates>.html>. I used to do this by
clicking on the "archive" link at the beginning of your message and then
clicking on the latest summary. For my type of reading I would strongly
prefer to have the link to the actual version at the top of the message,
rather than at the end.

I hope you keep summarizing as long as no other volunteer takes over.

thanks, Gerrit

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Martin_v=2E_L=F6wis=22?=]

Now, the reason for this specific rant is this: I can tell a cry for
help when I see one. Brett has done a magnificent job of providing
python-dev summaries since Andrew decided he'd had enough, and he is to
be congratulated for it. I managed to offload another bunch of work on
him (moderation of various troublesome PyCon mailing lists), but at
least I was able to recompense him by letting him into PyCon for nothing.

The more I participate, the more I can relate to Eric Raymond's notion
of a "gift society". Volunteers give their contributions to the
community just because they want to, and they may get recognition in
return. But because these are gifts, you can just stop giving them away
at any time, and nobody should feel bad about doing so. The community
only is only entitled to the contributor saying so - finding somebody
else to step in is indeed optional.

I don't actually know whether Brett would prefer to hand over the
python-dev summaries to somebody else, but if he wants to, he could
just *stop* publishing them, with nobody taking over, and my
appreciation of this contribution would not change at all. Continuing
it until a new volunteer steps forward is, as I said, truly optional.

I still recall when Tim Peters reappeared in the net (even though
I haven't been around long enough to remember him disappear), and
I know I didn't understand all the cheering and praising (I do
now, of course). So their isn't anything wrong with taking a
vacation from a project for some time, not even if the vacation
takes a few years

Enough ranting.

Regards,
Martin

 

[Brett C.]

Michele Simionato wrote [on c.l.py]:

Brett Cannon:

[... python-dev summary ... boilerplate change ...]

+1 for this idea. The summary looks much better now
Keep the good work going,

Sorry, but i have to disagree. I hope you won't take this reply
personally, Michele, since it's directed to all c.l.py readers, as well
as (particularly) at Python users who [unlike you] are mostly take and
rather less give. Although this is inherently the nature of open source,
in certain cases this can be taken too far.
[SNIP]
Now, the reason for this specific rant is this: I can tell a cry for
help when I see one. Brett has done a magnificent job of providing
python-dev summaries since Andrew decided he'd had enough, and he is to
be congratulated for it. I managed to offload another bunch of work on
him (moderation of various troublesome PyCon mailing lists), but at
least I was able to recompense him by letting him into PyCon for nothing.
[SNIP]
But frankly, I think it's time someone else stood up and said "Brett,
you've done a magnificent job. Hesitant though I am about replacing you,
I would like to volunteer for the task, because only when you are free
from the burden of writing the python-dev summaries will we see what
else you are capable of". Since I am at best an intermittent reader of
python-dev I can say this without fear of having to stand up myself.

[SNIP]

[I am going to use this to reply to both Steve and Martin]

As Steve mentioned above, he can spot a cry for help when he sees one. I think
the problem is that I am a total sucker when it comes to the Python community
and python-dev.

Anyone who has been on the python-dev list for as long as I have been a
participant has most likely seen my almost yearly "thank you" emails I send the
list (which there will probably be another one of once I choose where I am
going to pursue my doctorate; I have acceptances but I am still waiting to here
back from 9 more schools). Usually it is just me gushing to python-dev,
thanking the list for how Python has gotten me where I am today. And that
statement is completely sincere; python-dev has sculpted me into the programmer
that I am (does this mean I can blame python-dev for my own buggy code? =).
And for that I will be eternally grateful to all of the wonderful people I have
gotten to work with and know on this list.

It has also made me want to help people to get involved on python-dev in hopes
others would benefit from python-dev the same way I have. Granted, python-dev
tends not to attract people like I was when I started getting involved (a
philosophy degree and 4 CS courses does not equal a good programmer by default
=), but I have always hoped that through my efforts some other people could
come to enjoy hacking on Python, learn some things, and advance the language.

But I think the big problem is that the Summaries have become a "gift" in the
truest sense of the word. I lost all personal benefit from the Summaries over
a year ago. Initially I learned a ton from all of the reading I was doing and
the research required to understand what the heck people were talking about.
But I have graduated from "The School of Hard Knocks". At this point I do the
Summaries entirely altruistically, giving back what I can to the community in a
way that I know benefits many people which happens to have zero benefit to me now.

The Summaries consume what little free time I do have for Python which is
unfortunate. I have always hoped I would get to the point in my programming
abilities that I would be a larger asset to python-dev as a programmer than as
a writer. I would like to think I have reached that point finally after my
over two and a half years on the list (I can't believe I first posted to the
list on June 17, 2002!).

So, to make sure I don't squander what time I do have for Python waiting for a
possible replacement that might never come, I have decided that I am going to
stop doing the python-dev Summaries after PyCon; the Summary covering the last
half of March 2005 will be it for me. Hopefully I will be more valuable as an
active participant on python-dev again instead of as a passive listener who
just happens to chime in on occasion and squash a simple bug when I am
procrastinating from doing my homework.

This has been a long time coming and I needed a swift kick in the ass to
finally get me to stop. I thank you, Steve, for giving me that kick like the
English gentleman you are. =)

-Brett

 

[IncessantRanting]

as always I do appreciate your summaries. This new format, with the
boilerplate at the end certainly is an improvement. However, I always

use your news announcement as a trigger to read the version at
<http://www.python.org/dev/summary/<dates>.html>. I used to do this by
clicking on the "archive" link at the beginning of your message and then
clicking on the latest summary. For my type of reading I would strongly
prefer to have the link to the actual version at the top of the message,
rather than at the end.

I bet you are not the only one. I have now added a link just below the
TOC that points directly to the HTML version of the current Summary.

I hope you keep summarizing as long as no other volunteer takes over.

That will be true if someone picks it up between now and end of March.
I just sent a reply to Steve's email announcing my retirement from the
python-dev Summaries after I send off the March 16 - 31 Summary. Time
to stop and try to be more helpful in a (personally more enjoyable)
coding capacity on python-dev.

-Brett

 

[Max M]

Steve Holden wrote:

The more I participate, the more I can relate to Eric Raymond's notion
of a "gift society". Volunteers give their contributions to the
community just because they want to, and they may get recognition in
return. But because these are gifts, you can just stop giving them away
at any time, and nobody should feel bad about doing so. The community
only is only entitled to the contributor saying so - finding somebody
else to step in is indeed optional.

I write a few open source projects myself, and I get virtually no
feedback or patches on anything. Only complaints if there are bugs

But on the other hand I use a lot of other peoples code without commenting.

I guess that is the way it must work. You take leadership in a small
area, and you keep it as long as you care to.

So while it might not feel as a "brotherhood of shared effort" in the
single sub-project, it might very well be on a higher level.


--

hilsen/regards Max M, Denmark

http://www.mxm.dk/
IT's Mad Science