From lists at janc.be Fri Feb 1 23:45:49 2008 From: lists at janc.be (Jan Claeys) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:45:49 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] how many python users are there? In-Reply-To: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: <1201905949.21160.36.camel@localhost> Op zondag 27-01-2008 om 01:06 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Laura Creighton: > I need a figure for a report. Anybody got anything that is recent and > quotable? Python users europe-wide and world-wide are most useful, > but if you happen to have a very accurate one for some place else, I > can use that too. Who's a Python user? Someone using Python as a programming (or "scripting") language, or everyone using programs written in Python directly or indirectly? In the latter case, I guess the number of python users worldwide is probably close to one billion... ;-) -- Jan Claeys From lac at openend.se Sat Feb 2 11:47:32 2008 From: lac at openend.se (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:47:32 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] how many python users are there? In-Reply-To: Message from Jan Claeys of "Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:45:49 +0100." <1201905949.21160.36.camel@localhost> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <1201905949.21160.36.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <200802021047.m12AlXNv026793@theraft.openend.se> In a message of Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:45:49 +0100, Jan Claeys writes: >Op zondag 27-01-2008 om 01:06 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Laura >Creighton: >> I need a figure for a report. Anybody got anything that is recent and >> quotable? Python users europe-wide and world-wide are most useful, >> but if you happen to have a very accurate one for some place else, I >> can use that too. > >Who's a Python user? Someone using Python as a programming (or >"scripting") language, or everyone using programs written in Python >directly or indirectly? > >In the latter case, I guess the number of python users worldwide is >probably close to one billion... ;-) > > >-- >Jan Claeys That's a very good point. Thank you. Laura From roy at panix.com Sat Feb 9 05:39:02 2008 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 23:39:02 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: They say any publicity is good publicity, but this may not be. Python seems to be getting called out by the W3C as a leading abuser of their HTTP server. http://www.w3.org/blog/systeam/2008/02/08/w3c_s_excessive_dtd_traffic -- roy at panix.com From mikeyp at snaplogic.org Sat Feb 9 19:51:08 2008 From: mikeyp at snaplogic.org (Michael Pittaro) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:51:08 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> Roy Smith wrote: > They say any publicity is good publicity, but this may not be. > Python seems to be getting called out by the W3C as a leading abuser > of their HTTP server. > > http://www.w3.org/blog/systeam/2008/02/08/w3c_s_excessive_dtd_traffic > > > Wow! Thats a lot of traffic. It's hard to blame Python for this, since theres nothing in Python itself that pounds on the w3 servers. My interpretation is that urllib2 is being used in a lot of programs, many of which just use urlopen(). We could probably update the urllib documentation to strongly encourage setting the User-agent header. The examples already show how to do it, but if urllib2.urlopen() is the popular function, adding useragent as an argument to might be worth considering. My (optimistic) guess is that this problem might follow the 80/20 rule - there are a small number of popular programs or libraries using urllib2 that are the major offenders. I'm not sure how to track them down, other than being aware of the problem and paying more attention. mike -- Mike Pittaro Co-Founder Snaplogic, Inc. mikeyp at snaplogic.org http://www.snaplogic.org From facundobatista at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 14:36:38 2008 From: facundobatista at gmail.com (Facundo Batista) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:36:38 -0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> Message-ID: 2008/2/9, Michael Pittaro : > We could probably update the urllib documentation to strongly encourage > setting the User-agent header. The examples already show how to do it, > but if urllib2.urlopen() is the popular function, adding useragent as > an argument to might be worth considering. Setting the useragent, as any header, is plain easy. urllib2, right or wrong, has a minimalistic approach regarding the headers (for example, you send a POST request, adding data to it, and automatically it does not incorporate a Content-Length header. urllib2.urlopen could grow an User-Agent header, to make user aware that it's normally a "useful" header. But, remember that this method is multiprotocol, it supports file://, or ftp://, for example... Focusing in usefulness, I'd prefer a "headers" argument, but that's me. Regards, -- . Facundo Blog: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog/ PyAr: http://www.python.org/ar/ From jeff at drinktomi.com Mon Feb 11 19:08:46 2008 From: jeff at drinktomi.com (Jeff Younker) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:08:46 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> Message-ID: <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> On Feb 11, 2008, at 5:36 AM, Facundo Batista wrote: > 2008/2/9, Michael Pittaro : > >> We could probably update the urllib documentation to strongly >> encourage >> setting the User-agent header. The examples already show how to do >> it, >> but if urllib2.urlopen() is the popular function, adding useragent >> as >> an argument to might be worth considering > > Setting the useragent, as any header, is plain easy. Adding a feature, and putting a note in the documentation is not enough. People don't read the documentation in enough detail. If the library is leading to a problem, then the default for the library needs to be changed. Why do I argue this? 1) People aren't going to take note of the change in the documentation. 2) A lot of scripts don't get any appreciable maintenance, so changing the documentation won't affect these. 3) Fixing the module will result in all the software being changed as python versions are updated. - Jeff Younker - jeff at drinktomi.com - Why do I believe #1? At session at LISA 2000 I attended a session called, "Why the documentation sucks, and what you can do about it." The speaker was tech writer. He recounted an occasion when he did lab experiments with the documentation. The company he worked for had changed an OS tool's behavior. The change was noted in the new documentation. The warning was clearly set aside from the rest of the text. The manual was given to a group of people who's assignment was to read the manual, and to use the tool. In the first round nobody read the warning, and everybody misused the new version of the tool. So they made the warning bigger, and reprinted the manual. Still no change. This process continued until the warning was 48 pt bold text set on an independent page (I believe) in a bright florescent color. And still nobody noticed. The only solution that worked was changing the software so that it behaved as everyone had expected it to. No amount of documentation was sufficient to affect the change in user behavior. From roy at panix.com Mon Feb 11 19:27:18 2008 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:27:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> Message-ID: <6310.128.221.197.20.1202754438.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > In the first round nobody read the warning, and everybody misused > the new version of the tool. So they made the warning bigger, and > reprinted the manual. Still no change. This process continued > until the warning was 48 pt bold text set on an independent page > (I believe) in a bright florescent color. And still nobody noticed. They should have made the page blink :-) From facundobatista at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 19:23:52 2008 From: facundobatista at gmail.com (Facundo Batista) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:23:52 -0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> Message-ID: 2008/2/11, Jeff Younker : > enough. People don't read the documentation in enough detail. If > the library is leading to a problem, then the default for the library > needs to be changed. If we change urllib2 to start sending the "User-Agent" header by default, we need to address two issues here: - What we do to insert this change, as a lot of scripts that are actually written and working will change their behaviour. - What default to put (something like "Python 2.6.1 urllib2"?). In any case, if you're seriously suggesting this, I suggest you to start this discussion in python-dev. (I'm +0 for the change, btw). Thanks! -- . Facundo Blog: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog/ PyAr: http://www.python.org/ar/ From lac at openend.se Mon Feb 11 21:01:28 2008 From: lac at openend.se (Laura Creighton) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:01:28 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: Message from "Facundo Batista" of "Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:23:52 -0200." References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> Message-ID: <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> I'm having a hard time understanding what is going on here. Do we have a library which for no reason just calls up the WC3 site and pesters them? or are all those requests because somebody really wants to talk to WC3, on purpose, but now WC3 is miffed because it cannot find out who is accessing its site? Or am I misunderstanding totally? Laura From fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk Mon Feb 11 21:09:23 2008 From: fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk (Michael Foord) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:09:23 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: <47B0AB73.70109@voidspace.org.uk> Laura Creighton wrote: > I'm having a hard time understanding what is going on here. > > Do we have a library which for no reason just calls up the WC3 site > and pesters them? > > or are all those requests because somebody really wants to talk to > WC3, on purpose, but now WC3 is miffed because it cannot find out who > is accessing its site? > > Or am I misunderstanding totally? > The library doesn't do it deliberately. It is probably caused by applications parsing html and following all links (extracted with regular expressions). The W3C schema definitions look like links (they are URLs) - so these pages get unnecessarily fetched millions of times. Michael Foord > Laura > > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > > From fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk Mon Feb 11 21:11:15 2008 From: fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk (Michael Foord) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:11:15 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> Message-ID: <47B0ABE3.1090007@voidspace.org.uk> Facundo Batista wrote: > 2008/2/11, Jeff Younker : > > >> enough. People don't read the documentation in enough detail. If >> the library is leading to a problem, then the default for the library >> needs to be changed. >> > > If we change urllib2 to start sending the "User-Agent" header by > default, we need to address two issues here: > > - What we do to insert this change, as a lot of scripts that are > actually written and working will change their behaviour. > > - What default to put (something like "Python 2.6.1 urllib2"?). > > In any case, if you're seriously suggesting this, I suggest you to > start this discussion in python-dev. > > (I'm +0 for the change, btw). > My understanding is that it does have a default user-agent.(that looks very similar to the one you suggest). The only thing that would work (as far as I can tell), is to force the programmer to set an explicit user-agent rather than sending a default one. This would obviously break a lot of code and there is no guarantee that programmers would set it to anything useful... Michael Foord > Thanks! > > From roy at panix.com Mon Feb 11 22:11:21 2008 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:11:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <20080127001438.GB26735@panix.com> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: <44746.128.221.197.20.1202764281.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > I'm having a hard time understanding what is going on here. > > Do we have a library which for no reason just calls up the WC3 site > and pesters them? > > or are all those requests because somebody really wants to talk to > WC3, on purpose, but now WC3 is miffed because it cannot find out who > is accessing its site? I think what's going on is: Somebody (perhaps plural) wrote some web application(s) using the python urllib which parses this stuff at the beginning of most HTML pages: !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> and then does a (pointless) GET on "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd". And they left the version string at the default value. So, the W3C folks see bazillions of gets of that file from their servers, with the python urllib logged as the client. It's not really clear there's anything we can do about this. It's really not our fault if people are using python to write brain-dead applications. It's just annoying that we show up in the logs associated with them. From taleinat at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 23:30:48 2008 From: taleinat at gmail.com (Tal Einat) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:30:48 +0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <47B0ABE3.1090007@voidspace.org.uk> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <479DF35C.7000708@wingware.com> <20080128155257.GA29958@panix.com> <200801281651.m0SGpA0F014406@theraft.openend.se> <47ADF61C.9020000@snaplogic.org> <272439AB-17ED-43C0-9940-D718F680A237@drinktomi.com> <47B0ABE3.1090007@voidspace.org.uk> Message-ID: <7afdee2f0802111430mb59db6ar1f63c3597cb88b1b@mail.gmail.com> Michael Foord wrote: > Facundo Batista wrote: > > 2008/2/11, Jeff Younker : > > > > > >> enough. People don't read the documentation in enough detail. If > >> the library is leading to a problem, then the default for the library > >> needs to be changed. > >> > > > > My understanding is that it does have a default user-agent.(that looks > very similar to the one you suggest). > > The only thing that would work (as far as I can tell), is to force the > programmer to set an explicit user-agent rather than sending a default > one. This would obviously break a lot of code and there is no guarantee > that programmers would set it to anything useful... I am firmly against removing the default User-Agent string in urllib. I agree that forcing users to explicitly set a User-Agent string is the only way to get everyone using urllib to set their own User-Agent strings. But many applications will still end up using the same User-Agent strings (because underlying frameworks will set a default of their own). And, on the other hand, many users will set User-Agent strings which won't help contact the application's maintainer. The beauty and usefulness of urllib rely on the fact that it Just Works. If I just want to retrieve a web page, a simple HTTP GET command, it should be _simple_. If urllib forces developers to set all sorts of things they don't know or care about, like User-Agent strings, they won't use it. Some of them will even leave Python and use a different language which has a friendlier library for this purpose. But I'm not just going to be negative... I propose that we update the docs (!!). Yes, I did read the post about why documentation doesn't help, but I think context matters here, as well as time spans. Anyone doing more than just a few quick retrievals of web pages with urllib is bound to consult the docs sometime. If urllib's docs have a prominent note regarding setting the User-Agent, many of these people will notice it. I'm not talking about seasoned pros in the field who know the tool and have no reason to consult the docs; I'm talking about new users learning as their requirements expand, who will definitely consult the docs at some point. Other than that, basic users who will only use urllib's most basic features (probably by copy-pasting code from some tutorial/blog/forum) will never set a meaningful User-Agent anyways, and forcing them to in any way will be counter-productive on our part. As for existing applications/frameworks which don't set User-Agent strings, in the long run they will eventually notice a prominent note in the docs. To help things along in the short term, I think it would be better to reach them by conventional means than by breaking their code or otherwise forcing them to make such a change. ("conventional" meaning posts like these to mailing lists/forums, and perhaps a few on comp.lang.python and some blogs.) - Tal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080212/75db3f71/attachment-0001.htm From doug.hellmann at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 23:52:24 2008 From: doug.hellmann at gmail.com (Doug Hellmann) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:52:24 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I agree that adding documentation to encourage the use of a User-Agent header won't make much difference, and that forcing the developer to provide a "useful" value is going too far. The source of the hits on the W3C site is bone-headed scripts that use regexes or other incorrect methods for finding links in HTML. Neither of these solution addresses this problem anyway, because the problem isn't that we can't find the author of the bone-headed scripts, the problem is that the scripts are out there in the first place. There's not a lot we can do about existing programs, but adding a function to the standard library to properly parse out the links would solve the problem for new code, since most developers would use it rather than writing their own. Doug From jeff at taupro.com Tue Feb 12 00:18:31 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:18:31 -0600 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B0D7C7.40501@taupro.com> Doug Hellmann wrote: > > There's not a lot we can do about existing programs, but adding a > function to the standard library to properly parse out the links would > solve the problem for new code, since most developers would use it > rather than writing their own. Another step we could take is to search the Cheeseshop to insure we don't have any of these misbehaving programs in our repository. I wonder if there is some way to globally search uploaded source packages for use of urllib2 and then visually check them for abusive patterns. -Jeff From paul at boddie.org.uk Tue Feb 12 00:22:26 2008 From: paul at boddie.org.uk (Paul Boddie) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:22:26 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <47B0AB73.70109@voidspace.org.uk> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> <47B0AB73.70109@voidspace.org.uk> Message-ID: <200802120022.26741.paul@boddie.org.uk> On Monday 11 February 2008 21:09:23 Michael Foord wrote: > Laura Creighton wrote: > > I'm having a hard time understanding what is going on here. > > > > Do we have a library which for no reason just calls up the WC3 site > > and pesters them? Yes. [...] > The library doesn't do it deliberately. It is probably caused by > applications parsing html and following all links (extracted with > regular expressions). The W3C schema definitions look like links (they > are URLs) - so these pages get unnecessarily fetched millions of times. This is not the case, but it's interesting to see how everyone jumped to that conclusion but didn't bother to do a search on the standard library. If you do so, there are two places which stand out: xml/dom/xmlbuilder.py xml/sax/saxutils.py What gives them away is the way as the cause of the described problem is that they are both fetching things which are given as "system identifiers" - the things you get in the document type declaration at the top of an XML document which look like a URL. If you then put some trace statements into the code and then try and parse something using, for example, the xml.sax API, it becomes evident that by default the parser attempts to fetch lots of DTD-related resources, not helped by the way that stuff like XHTML is now "modular" and thus employs lots of separate files in the DTD. This is obvious because you get something like this printed to the terminal: saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-inlstyle-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-framework-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-datatypes-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-qname-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-events-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-attribs-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml11-model-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-charent-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-symbol.ent saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-special.ent saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-text-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-inlstruct-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-inlphras-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-blkstruct-1.mod saxutils: opened http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-blkphras-1.mod Of course, the "best practice" with APIs like SAX is that you define your own resolver or handler classes which don't go and fetch DTDs from the W3C all the time, but this isn't the "out of the box" behaviour. Instead, implementers have chosen the most convenient behaviour which arguably involves the least effort in telling people how to get hold of DTDs so that they may validate their documents, but which isn't necessarily the "right thing" in terms of network behaviour. Naturally, since defining specific resolvers/handlers involves a lot of boilerplate (and you should try it in Java!) then a lot of developers just incur the penalty of having the default behaviour, instead of considering the finer points of the various W3C specifications (which is never really any fun). Anyway, I posted a comment saying much the same on the blog referenced at the start of this thread, but we should be aware that this is default standard library behaviour, not rogue application developer behaviour. Paul From taleinat at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 00:38:27 2008 From: taleinat at gmail.com (Tal Einat) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:38:27 +0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7afdee2f0802111538t45cc360qe3ca45953d70c75e@mail.gmail.com> Doug Hellmann wrote: > > I agree that adding documentation to encourage the use of a User-Agent > header won't make much difference, and that forcing the developer to > provide a "useful" value is going too far. The source of the hits on > the W3C site is bone-headed scripts that use regexes or other > incorrect methods for finding links in HTML. Neither of these > solution addresses this problem anyway, because the problem isn't that > we can't find the author of the bone-headed scripts, the problem is > that the scripts are out there in the first place. > > There's not a lot we can do about existing programs, but adding a > function to the standard library to properly parse out the links would > solve the problem for new code, since most developers would use it > rather than writing their own. Ahh, if only it were so simple! But web content, especially HTML, is such a mess that making a "standard function" which will Just Work is nearly impossible. It's hard enough that there isn't any such code to be readily found, AFAIK. BeautifulSoup does a pretty good job at this. It's not yet mature, especially since it is mainly developed and maintained by just one person. But if an effort were made to clean up the code, thoroughly test it and improve it's documentation, it certainly would be an awesome tool in the Python developer's workbench. (IMO it already is great, but isn't quite ready for mass usage because of lack of testing, lacking documentation, and hard-to-read code.) But as Paul's post just mentioned, this might be off-topic... - Tal From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Feb 12 01:06:47 2008 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:06:47 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python makes the "most wanted list" In-Reply-To: <200802120022.26741.paul@boddie.org.uk> References: <200801270006.m0R068oB015943@theraft.openend.se> <200802112001.m1BK1SdW000322@theraft.openend.se> <47B0AB73.70109@voidspace.org.uk> <200802120022.26741.paul@boddie.org.uk> Message-ID: <20080212000647.GB6388@panix.com> On Tue, Feb 12, 2008, Paul Boddie wrote: > > This is not the case, but it's interesting to see how everyone jumped > to that conclusion but didn't bother to do a search on the standard > library. If you do so, there are two places which stand out: > > xml/dom/xmlbuilder.py > xml/sax/saxutils.py Please file a bug report and post the bug ID to python-dev. Thanks! -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection." --Butler Lampson From roy at panix.com Thu Feb 14 17:16:56 2008 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:16:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: [python-advocacy] Python training In-Reply-To: <7afdee2f0802111538t45cc360qe3ca45953d70c75e@mail.gmail.com> References: <7afdee2f0802111538t45cc360qe3ca45953d70c75e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29911.128.221.197.20.1203005816.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Spotted this morning (they're advertising on one of the IEEE mailing lists) http://www.interactivesupercomputing.com/wpoffers/wp3/?Source=IEEE_Institute_Alert_Feb_08 From aahz at pythoncraft.com Thu Feb 21 03:19:15 2008 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:19:15 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] "You Used Python to Write WHAT?" Message-ID: <20080221021915.GA21739@panix.com> http://www.cio.com/article/185350 -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection." --Butler Lampson From luizgeron at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 05:15:00 2008 From: luizgeron at gmail.com (Luiz Carlos Geron) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:15:00 -0300 Subject: [python-advocacy] "You Used Python to Write WHAT?" In-Reply-To: <20080221021915.GA21739@panix.com> References: <20080221021915.GA21739@panix.com> Message-ID: On 2/20/08, Aahz wrote: > http://www.cio.com/article/185350 On the comments I noticed something very interesting I didnt know before: there are attempts to create a python version for embedded devices, with max size of 64k. http://www.philhassey.com/blog/2008/02/19/tinypy-64k-nearing-10-and-it-really-does-fit-in-64k/ I really hope this project and Pymite make some great progress to the point where python becomes a very appealing option for embedded development. -- []'s, Luiz Carlos Geron From jmccormick at ciozone.com Thu Feb 21 18:03:13 2008 From: jmccormick at ciozone.com (jmccormick at ciozone.com) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:03:13 -0700 Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" Message-ID: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080221/b952e1c3/attachment.htm From fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk Thu Feb 21 23:25:46 2008 From: fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk (Michael Foord) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:25:46 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" In-Reply-To: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> References: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <47BDFA6A.9040701@voidspace.org.uk> I just went through the presentation and couldn't see Python? Michael jmccormick at ciozone.com wrote: > > CIOZone just published an article titled ?50 Top Open Source Resources > CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love).? > > Python is on the list. > > We thought you?d be interested. > > Go to: > www.ciozone.com/index.php/Tools/50-Top-Open-Source-Resources-CIOs-Should-Know-And-Maybe-Love.html > > > Thanks, > John > > John McCormick > > Chief Content Officer > > CIOZone > > jmccormick at ciozone.com > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > From fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk Thu Feb 21 23:27:57 2008 From: fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk (Michael Foord) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:27:57 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" In-Reply-To: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> References: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <47BDFAED.6050101@voidspace.org.uk> Ah - found it! http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Tools/50-Top-Open-Source-Resources-CIOs-Should-Know-And-Maybe-Love/Programming-Languages-Tools-and-Environments.html (Not in the presentation but part of the article.) Michael jmccormick at ciozone.com wrote: > > CIOZone just published an article titled ?50 Top Open Source Resources > CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love).? > > Python is on the list. > > We thought you?d be interested. > > Go to: > www.ciozone.com/index.php/Tools/50-Top-Open-Source-Resources-CIOs-Should-Know-And-Maybe-Love.html > > > Thanks, > John > > John McCormick > > Chief Content Officer > > CIOZone > > jmccormick at ciozone.com > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > From mtobis at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 23:56:18 2008 From: mtobis at gmail.com (Michael Tobis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:56:18 -0600 Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" In-Reply-To: <47BDFAED.6050101@voidspace.org.uk> References: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> <47BDFAED.6050101@voidspace.org.uk> Message-ID: > http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Tools/50-Top-Open-Source-Resources-CIOs-Should-Know-And-Maybe-Love/Programming-Languages-Tools-and-Environments.html > I'll brazenly quote the ENTIRE Python review and hopefully save you a click. "General-purpose, high-level programming language with minimalist syntax. Popular at organizations such as Google, which employs Python creator Guido van Rossum." Well. That's certainly an in-depth view of Python's strengths and weaknesses. Yes, indeed. mt From mtobis at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 00:00:30 2008 From: mtobis at gmail.com (Michael Tobis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:00:30 -0600 Subject: [python-advocacy] An answer to the "why Python" question Message-ID: I think not enough is made of the fact that Python combines legibility and power better than any other platform. Paul Prescod says it very well here: http://www.prescod.net/python/IsPythonLisp.html Salient quote: "I get paid to share my code with "dufuses" known as domain experts. Using Python, I typically do not have to wrap my code up as a COM object for their use in VB. I do not have to code in a crappy language designed only for non-experts. They do not have to learn a hard language designed only for experts. We can talk the same language. They can read and sometimes maintain my code if they need to." mt From roy at panix.com Fri Feb 22 00:46:59 2008 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:46:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" In-Reply-To: References: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> <47BDFAED.6050101@voidspace.org.uk> Message-ID: <55130.128.221.197.21.1203637619.squirrel@mail.panix.com> >> http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Tools/50-Top-Open-Source-Resources-CIOs-Should-Know-And-Maybe-Love/Programming-Languages-Tools-and-Environments.html >> > > I'll brazenly quote the ENTIRE Python review and hopefully save you a > click. > > "General-purpose, high-level programming language with minimalist > syntax. Popular at organizations such as Google, which employs Python > creator Guido van Rossum." > > Well. That's certainly an in-depth view of Python's strengths and > weaknesses. Yes, indeed. You gotta take into account that his is aimed at CIO's. Even that short paragraph taxes their attention span :-) From jeff at taupro.com Fri Feb 22 04:39:47 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:39:47 -0600 Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" In-Reply-To: References: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> <47BDFAED.6050101@voidspace.org.uk> Message-ID: <47BE4403.4000309@taupro.com> Michael Tobis wrote: > > I'll brazenly quote the ENTIRE Python review and hopefully save you a click. > > "General-purpose, high-level programming language with minimalist > syntax. Popular at organizations such as Google, which employs Python > creator Guido van Rossum." > > Well. That's certainly an in-depth view of Python's strengths and > weaknesses. Yes, indeed. Uh, it -is- a "50 Top Open Source Resources" article, so you can't do an in-depth of -each- of those 50 resources. Think Python and Jay Leno's top 10 list - sound bite. -Jeff From Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl Fri Feb 22 10:08:05 2008 From: Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:08:05 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] CIOZone posts "50 Top Open Source Resources CIOs Should Know (And Maybe Love)" In-Reply-To: References: <20080221100313.e72a7d62cfce7f87a79ee45961f4ea4c.73902f1bb8.wbe@email.secureserver.net> <47BDFAED.6050101@voidspace.org.uk> Message-ID: <7863EA59-60FF-4184-B516-A8EEB6336A86@cwi.nl> On 21-Feb-2008, at 23:56 , Michael Tobis wrote: >> http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Tools/50-Top-Open-Source-Resources-CIOs-Should-Know-And-Maybe-Love/Programming-Languages-Tools-and-Environments.html >> > > I'll brazenly quote the ENTIRE Python review and hopefully save you > a click. > > "General-purpose, high-level programming language with minimalist > syntax. Popular at organizations such as Google, which employs Python > creator Guido van Rossum." > > Well. That's certainly an in-depth view of Python's strengths and > weaknesses. Yes, indeed. Well, it beats "Mostly harmless" :-) -- Jack Jansen, , http://www.cwi.nl/~jack If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma Goldman From sdeibel at wingware.com Fri Feb 22 21:27:28 2008 From: sdeibel at wingware.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:27:28 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python is programming language of the year (again?) Message-ID: <47BF3030.3080203@wingware.com> Hi, Got this from linuxquestions.org and thought it should be posted here: """ Hello, Congratulations! It's my pleasure to inform you that Python has been selected as the Programming Language of the Year in the 2007 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. For more information, visit: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2007-linuxquestions.org-members-choice-awards-79/programming-language-of-the-year-610237/ I've attached a certificate and a website badge. If you have any questions, let me know. --jeremy http://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/ """ I've attached the logo and certificate but don't know if it will get scrubbed by the list, so please contact me if they're missing and you want them. - Stephan -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2007_mca_python.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 995606 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080222/5320dc3b/attachment-0001.pdf -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2007_programming_btn.png Type: image/png Size: 24127 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080222/5320dc3b/attachment-0001.png From facundobatista at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 22:27:56 2008 From: facundobatista at gmail.com (Facundo Batista) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:27:56 -0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python is programming language of the year (again?) In-Reply-To: <47BF3030.3080203@wingware.com> References: <47BF3030.3080203@wingware.com> Message-ID: 2008/2/22, Stephan Deibel : > Congratulations! It's my pleasure to inform you that Python > has been selected as the Programming Language of the Year in the 2007 > LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. For more information, > visit: Nice. This is the full result page: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2007-linuxquestions.org-members-choice-awards-79/programming-language-of-the-year-610237/ C++ comes second, and C and PHP virtually tied in the third position. -- . Facundo Blog: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog/ PyAr: http://www.python.org/ar/ From facundobatista at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 23:57:19 2008 From: facundobatista at gmail.com (Facundo Batista) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:57:19 -0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python camping in Argentina Message-ID: Hi! This post is to tell you about a Python event we had the last weekend. It was a Python camping, in Los Cocos, C?rdoba, Argentina. More than 20 Python developers, some experienced, some new ones, joined together in a center where we made a lot of activities during four whole days: - We had a mini python bug day, closing 4 or 5 issues, but more important, two new developers know how the full process is. - Worked heavily on a PyAr project, CDPedia, that aims to release a part of the wikipedia (spanish pages, for example, ;) ) to be queried off line, distributable in a CD. The project, when finished, will give you the way to construct these CDs or DVDs with the subselection of the wikipedia that you want, with installers for different operating systems, full text searches, and everything, :) - Made a framework for handling Scenes, Layers, sprites movements, and menues in pyglet, thinking in PyWeek. - Worked with behaviour trees and perceptrons, for AI modeling (yes, with Python). - Made a translation of Trac to spanish, aiming to include it in a Trac branch that will handle localizations. - Had a Python Argentina formal meeting. - Worked on a Rubick cube game in pyglet. And of course, we lunched and dinner all together, played games, climbed a mountain (carrying the Python Argentina flag to the top, see the photos), and have a lot, lot of fun. All the photos, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54757453 at N00/sets/72157603938876036/ Regards, -- . Facundo Blog: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog/ PyAr: http://www.python.org/ar/ From jeff at taupro.com Sun Feb 24 06:52:35 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:52:35 -0600 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python camping in Argentina In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C10623.1010409@taupro.com> Facundo Batista wrote: > > This post is to tell you about a Python event we had the last weekend. > > It was a Python camping, in Los Cocos, C?rdoba, Argentina. More than > 20 Python developers, some experienced, some new ones, joined together > in a center where we made a lot of activities during four whole days: Hey, that looks like great fun! We need to do something like that here in Dallas, something both outdoors and indoors. I even saw a Settlers of Catan game going, one of my favorite (and I hope to get a game going at PyCon this year). > And of course, we lunched and dinner all together, played games, > climbed a mountain (carrying the Python Argentina flag to the top, see > the photos), and have a lot, lot of fun. > > All the photos, here: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/54757453 at N00/sets/72157603938876036/ Thanks for posting the photos - it looks like very nice weather and a fun hike. The list of projects you worked on was impressive as well, in its diversity. Very inspirational. -Jeff From facundobatista at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 12:01:52 2008 From: facundobatista at gmail.com (Facundo Batista) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:01:52 -0200 Subject: [python-advocacy] Python camping in Argentina In-Reply-To: <47C10623.1010409@taupro.com> References: <47C10623.1010409@taupro.com> Message-ID: 2008/2/24, Jeff Rush : > Dallas, something both outdoors and indoors. I even saw a Settlers of Catan > game going, one of my favorite (and I hope to get a game going at PyCon this > year). Count with me with that. Did you know there's an electronic version? I installed a .dev and we played it once through the network! > Thanks for posting the photos - it looks like very nice weather and a fun > hike. The list of projects you worked on was impressive as well, in its > diversity. Very inspirational. Yes, it's great. And even if you work in one or two projects, you "are there", and listen about others, and even participate in their discussions regarding design, etc. -- . Facundo Blog: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog/ PyAr: http://www.python.org/ar/ From goodmansond at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 05:28:37 2008 From: goodmansond at gmail.com (DeanG) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:28:37 -0600 Subject: [python-advocacy] [~OT] Pythons US migration!? Message-ID: Just in time for PyCon's more northern US endeavor... "Pythons Could Slither North as Climate Warms" http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/22/python-climate-change.html Not quite the world domination we're targetting. See you at PyCon! - Dean /drivinging South for PyCon