Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Apr 30)

[Cameron Laird]

QOTW: "That is just as feasible as passing a cruise ship through a phone
line." - Carsten Haese, on transporting a COM object across a network.
Less vividly but more formally, as he notes, "A COM object represents a
connection to a service or executable that is running on one computer.
Transferring that connection to another computer is impossible."

"[D]on't burn bandwith by banal banter, post the examples!" - John Machin
See the great cities of Europe, learn Python, and play the "Where's
Alex (Guido/...)?" game: attend a conference in Paris, Vilnius,
Firenze, Birmingham, ...:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....536c746c593a8/

Pygame is now having weekly (!) sprints to fix bugs on Wednesdays.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mai...-users/3441195
http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=10116/ur0701j/

Exception-handling is important. You need to learn 'most
everything about it you can. See, for example, this thread
about disaggregating IOError:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....b8e52d2642537/

Reasons to enjoy Python--but read the comments:
http://blog.cbcg.net/articles/2007/0...nd-to-drizzown
================================================== ======================
Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in
these pages:

Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional
center of Pythonia
http://www.python.org
Notice especially the master FAQ
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html

PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the
marvelous daily python url
http://www.pythonware.com/daily
Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new)
World-Wide Web articles related to Python.
http://www.awaretek.com/nowak/mygale.html
While cosmetically similar, Mygale and the Daily Python-URL
are utterly different in their technologies and generally in
their results.

For far, FAR more Python reading than any one mind should
absorb, much of it quite interesting, Planet Python indexes
much of the universe of Pybloggers.
http://www.planetpython.org/

The Python Papers aims to publish "the efforts of Python enthusiats".
http://pythonpapers.org/

Readers have recommended the "Planet" sites:
http://planetpython.org
http://planet.python.org

comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newsgroup weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...ython.announce

Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..."
Updates appear more-than-weekly:
http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html

Steve Bethard continues the marvelous tradition early borne by
Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson, Brett Cannon, Tony Meyer, and Tim
Lesher of intelligently summarizing action on the python-dev mailing
list once every other week.
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/

The Python Package Index catalogues packages.
http://www.python.org/pypi/

The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references
to all sorts of Python resources.
http://www.vex.net/~x/parnassus/

Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group
mailing lists
http://www.python.org/sigs/

Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line
match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're
subject with a vision of what the language makes practical.
http://www.pythonology.com/success

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python
Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official
responsibility for Python's development and maintenance.
http://www.python.org/psf/
Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation.
http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html

Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches.
http://www.google.com/groups?as_usub...python%20patch

Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python
hyperlinks retains a few gems.
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html

Python FAQTS
http://python.faqts.com/

The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and
interesting recipes.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python

Many Python conferences around the world are in preparation.
Watch this space for links to them.

Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are
http://www.python.org/channews.rdf
http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi
http://python.de/backend.php
For more, see
http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?...ShowStatus=all
The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a
SourceForge reincarnation.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid...70&func=browse
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0042/

The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com.
ed****@pythonjournal.com and ed****@pythonjournal.cognizor.com
welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding
of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work.

del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/python

*Py: the Journal of the Python Language*
http://www.pyzine.com

Archive probing tricks of the trade:
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...python&num=100
http://groups.google.com/groups?meta....lang.python.*

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://www.ddj.com/topic/python/ (requires subscription)
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups...t=0&scoring=d&
http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant)
or
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python
There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments
for and against are occasionally entertained.
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <Py********@phaseit.netshould get through.

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning
(approximately), ask <cl****@phaseit.netto subscribe. Mention
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-- The Python-URL! Team--

Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and
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news about posting archives.

[Roger Upole]

Cameron Laird wrote:

QOTW: "That is just as feasible as passing a cruise ship through a phone
line." - Carsten Haese, on transporting a COM object across a network.
Less vividly but more formally, as he notes, "A COM object represents a
connection to a service or executable that is running on one computer.
Transferring that connection to another computer is impossible."

While this is indeed a nice turn of phrase, in substance it's incorrect.
You can marshal a live COM object and unmarshal it on a different
machine.

Roger

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[Cameron Laird]

In article <11**************@sp12lax.superfeed.net>,
Roger Upole <ru****@hotmail.comwrote:

>Cameron Laird wrote:

>QOTW: "That is just as feasible as passing a cruise ship through a phone
line." - Carsten Haese, on transporting a COM object across a network.
Less vividly but more formally, as he notes, "A COM object represents a
connection to a service or executable that is running on one computer.
Transferring that connection to another computer is impossible."

While this is indeed a nice turn of phrase, in substance it's incorrect.
You can marshal a live COM object and unmarshal it on a different
machine.

[Roger Upole]

"Cameron Laird" <cl****@lairds.uswrote in message news:96************@lairds.us...

In article <11**************@sp12lax.superfeed.net>,
Roger Upole <ru****@hotmail.comwrote:

>>Cameron Laird wrote:

>>QOTW: "That is just as feasible as passing a cruise ship through a phone
line." - Carsten Haese, on transporting a COM object across a network.
Less vividly but more formally, as he notes, "A COM object represents a
connection to a service or executable that is running on one computer.
Transferring that connection to another computer is impossible."

While this is indeed a nice turn of phrase, in substance it's incorrect.
You can marshal a live COM object and unmarshal it on a different
machine.

.
.
.
... but the *references* in that object are unlikely to be
meaningful on the second machine (or, in many cases, on the
original machine, if at a sufficiently later time).

In practice, you can marshal and unmarshal an object as complex
as Excel.Application which contains references to literally hundreds
of objects.

Roger

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----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[Neil Hodgson]

Cameron Laird:

... but the *references* in that object are unlikely to be
meaningful on the second machine (or, in many cases, on the
original machine, if at a sufficiently later time).

The marshaling of the object is responsible for persisting any
contained references in a format that can be revivified on the second
machine. Sometimes these are references to 'short lived' objects in the
original process, in which case they should have been addrefed which
will also lock the process alive. Other times they may be monikers to
stable objects which can be reloaded.

Neil

[Cameron Laird]

In article <11**************@sp12lax.superfeed.net>,
Roger Upole <ru****@hotmail.comwrote:

>
"Cameron Laird" <cl****@lairds.uswrote in message
news:96************@lairds.us...

>In article <11**************@sp12lax.superfeed.net>,
Roger Upole <ru****@hotmail.comwrote:

>>>Cameron Laird wrote:
QOTW: "That is just as feasible as passing a cruise ship through a phone
line." - Carsten Haese, on transporting a COM object across a network.
Less vividly but more formally, as he notes, "A COM object represents a
connection to a service or executable that is running on one computer.
Transferring that connection to another computer is impossible."
While this is indeed a nice turn of phrase, in substance it's incorrect.
You can marshal a live COM object and unmarshal it on a different
machine.

.
.
.
... but the *references* in that object are unlikely to be
meaningful on the second machine (or, in many cases, on the
original machine, if at a sufficiently later time).

In practice, you can marshal and unmarshal an object as complex
as Excel.Application which contains references to literally hundreds
of objects.

[Alex Martelli]

Neil Hodgson <ny*****************@gmail.comwrote:

Cameron Laird:

... but the *references* in that object are unlikely to be
meaningful on the second machine (or, in many cases, on the
original machine, if at a sufficiently later time).

The marshaling of the object is responsible for persisting any
contained references in a format that can be revivified on the second
machine. Sometimes these are references to 'short lived' objects in the
original process, in which case they should have been addrefed which
will also lock the process alive. Other times they may be monikers to
stable objects which can be reloaded.

Excellent brief summary.

If one COM object in ten implemented marshaling correctly, I might still
be a "Windows guru" instead of having run away screaming years ago
(which played out all right careerwise, actually:-).

Everybody needs to read Don Box's "Essential COM", btw; if one author of
COM code in ten had read and understood it, etc, etc.
Alex