From durango at mail2world.com  Sat Apr  1 06:39:24 2006
From: durango at mail2world.com (Mr  X)
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 20:39:24 -0800
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Python, VB math simple problem
Message-ID: <220a301c65546$40c7b7a0$0a10010a@mail2world.com>



Hi looking for help with what should be a fairly simple Python problem,
relating to VB inter-operability.
Got a great response from a fellow named Matt at help at python.org,
pointed me in some good directions - some areas, concerns still foggy
on, the below thread is included.... any feedback on this simple dilemma
would be very appreciated.

Thanks,

D

thread follows below;

------------------------------------

To: help at python.org 
Subject: Problem with Python math functions and VB 
Date: 3/30/2006 9:39:28 PM 
Download Message Display Headers Printer Friendly 
Previous | Next 

Wondering if you might either know how to solve the following.

I've a background in Visual Basic, and am using an old version, 4.0, it
compiles to a smaller executable which I prefer. I find myself in an odd
situation, needing a very simple yet powerful capability of Python for a
VB app
Im working on.

Simply, a large 300 digit number is divided by a smaller number ranging
from 1 to 3 digits. I.e;

This large 300 digit number is generated as a string from the VB app,
and I want to input this somehow
from the VB app directly to Python for simple math operations.

Where; x = 300 digit number, y = divisor ( say '37')


x / 37

I want to divide x by y but I want the remainder of this division to at
least 3 or 4 decimal places, so my Python script at the command line;

x %y /y. = z

So now I want to take the resultant, the full number plus its remainder,
and I want to round this number up
to the next highest number and divide it by the same constant;

z rounded up to next highest number (never the lowest)

so

z /y = z Long

Remove the 'L' at the end, round up the last digit of z = Z

Then;

Z %y /y. = a

Then I want the last five digits of z (not Z) and a truncated at the
end, so the last digit before
the decimal point and the four digits past the decimal point printed to
a text file.

I want to be able to open the text file with the VB app and use this
data as inputs.
==========

Ok, so here is my dilemma, I know VERY litle about Python and a fair bit
about VB.

Ideally, I'd love to be able to simply have some extremely small
executable that just accepts inputs
does the calculations above and then spits out the outputs. If it were
possible to write some
simple lines of math code in Python and then compile these scripts in
Python to a Windows
compatible executable,that would be fantastic.

If I could simply have my VB app, 'call' the name of the tiny Python
executable, and then the Python executable
just automatically looked for a named text file (created by the VB app)
and extracted the 300 digit number from this, then performed the calcs,
then spit this data out as a new text file name it created, which I
could then use the VB app to open and read from, THAT would be ideal.

However, I don't know if Python can compile scripts to an exe? If it can
how could I find out how to do this?

If it doesn't, how could I get VB to directly pass commands to the
Python command line and then automatically
extract the outputs? Shelling out from VB to Python would be tough to
the command line I think, since the Python command line uses the 'Edit /
Mark, Paste' approach to inserting, copy inputs, outputs and this would
be virtually untenable, as far as I can tell to automate in a VB shell
out routine.

So basically, how the heck can I access Pythons ability to perform
simple calculations on very large numbers, easily, from within VB 4.0 ?
There must be a way, it seems like such a simple think to do, especially
since the actual math operations are so simple, straight forward, and
would never change.....

Any ideas?



------
Matthew, thanks for your response. 

<-----Original Message-----> 
>From: Matthew Dixon Cowles
>Sent: 3/31/2006 9:41:18 AM
>To: durango at mail2world.com
>Cc: help at python.org
>Subject: Re: [Python-Help] Problem with Python math functions and VB

>I'm sure that there's a way to do that, but I'm not familiar with 
>Visual Basic and I don't know what inter-process communication 
>facilities it offers. 

Is there a person or group you might direct me to that has worked with
this 
inter-process communication between VB and Python?

>I don't think that Python is going to be able to do that for you out 
>of the box. Hundreds of digits of floating-point precision is a lot. 

Could you explain that a bit more, sorry Im not sure what you mean
by 'out of the box' ? If I run the Python command line screen in windows
and manually type out a very large number, say 180 digits; where 'X' =
very large number;

X %37 /37.

returns what Im after, value wise..... but of course I don't want to do
this manually each time
for every dividend.

>You might find that one of the Python modules that let you use an 
>extended-precision library would do what you want. GMPY is one: 

>http://gmpy.sourceforge.net/ 

Hey, thats interesting, wonder if these modules can be operated on with
VB.....

>> So now I want to take the resultant, the full number plus its 
>> remainder, and I want to round this number up 
>> to the next highest number and divide it by the same constant; 
>
>That's easy enough. 
>
>> I want to be able to open the text file with the VB app and use this 
>> data as inputs. 
>
>Python can write to a file without any trouble, so it that form of 
>inter-process communication suits you, you shouldn't have much 
>trouble. I assume that Visual Basic has an easy way to start a 
>program and supply it with arguments, so you could have your Python 
>program get its inputs from sys.argv. 

What is sys.argv ? Thats really good news. In fact, all I really need
for the moment is
a python executable that;

================
PYTHON ALGORITHM ABSTRACT

a) opens a text file
b) reads a string from the file, which is a very large number
c) performs simple arithmetic operations;

X %37 /37. = y (four digit remainder after decimal point)
X /37 = w (quotient as long, the resulting output is stored as a
variable, the 'L' suffix tagged on the end of this resultant then gets
removed.
then the last digit in the quotient resultant string is increased in
value by one, rounded upwards = 'Z'

then 

Z %37 /37. = a

then, y and a are printed to a text file with hard returns between them.
Thats it, thats all I need to do.
===================
>Alas, it's not going to be extremely small. There isn't a compiler 
>from Python to machine code. Py2exe will bundle a Python program, 
>with everything that it needs to run, into a single executable 
>archive. But the archive isn't small. Py2exe is at: 
>
>http://www.py2exe.org/ 

the most important thing is the functionality, I'll sacrifice size if I
have to. My guess is this should work based on your comments, because
perhaps all I really have to do is have VB dump out the value of the
Very large number, `180 to 300 digits or so', to a text file, which then
becomes the input data for the Python executable, and then if I simply
call the name of the Python executable from VB as an instance,
then the Python App runs, spits out the data as a new text file, then
the VB app goes and opens the new text file and reads in the values,
and voila! There it is. I'm pretty sure I can call the Python app from
VB....... the alternative to all this would be to try and feed Python
scripts
directly to Python from VB, which I have NO idea how to do or where to
begin.... and am guessing would be much more messy...

I haven't programmed in Python, how would the "PYTHON ALGORITHM
ABSTRACT" I describe above look like, code wise? 
Is this fairly easy for you to describe?

>It may be that Python isn't the best solution for you here. Are there 
>extended-precision libraries for Visual Basic? 

Alas, none that I know of that are reliable and not incredibly
expensive, been looking for years, plus Im hooped because I have to work
with VB 4.0 instead of 6 +, guh.... 

>Regards, 
>Matt 

Matt..... good name, why do I always seem to get along with Matts, you
people keep popping up in my life and its always a blast!

Best regards,

D 


<span id=m2wTl><p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" style="font-size:13.5px">_______________________________________________________________<BR>Get the FREE email that has everyone talking at <a href=http://www.mail2world.com target=new>http://www.mail2world.com</a><br>  <font color=#999999>Unlimited Email Storage &#150; POP3 &#150; Calendar &#150; SMS &#150; Translator &#150; Much More!</font></font></span>
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From ryan at rfk.id.au  Sun Apr  2 08:48:00 2006
From: ryan at rfk.id.au (Ryan Kelly)
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 16:48:00 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Python, VB math simple problem
In-Reply-To: <220a301c65546$40c7b7a0$0a10010a@mail2world.com>
References: <220a301c65546$40c7b7a0$0a10010a@mail2world.com>
Message-ID: <1143960481.9334.8.camel@mango>


> Ideally, I'd love to be able to simply have some extremely small
> executable that just accepts inputs
> does the calculations above and then spits out the outputs. If it were
> possible to write some
> simple lines of math code in Python and then compile these scripts in
> Python to a Windows
> compatible executable,that would be fantastic.

This is certainly possible, but the executable will definitely not be
small.  For such a streamlined task, I don't think it would be worth
trying to generate a separate executable.


Instead, why not have your VB program generate a python script that
performs the calculations?  Then you can just call the python
interpreter to execute that program. Like so: (dont know VB syntax
sorry)


  fp = open_file("do_my_calculations.py")
  write(fp,"<<python code that does calculations>>")
  write(fp,"<<python code that prints result to 'my_results.txt'>>")
  close_file(fp)
  execute("C:/Wherever/python.exe do_my_calculations.py")
  fp = open_file("my_results.txt")
  results = read(fp)


I hope that makes sense - have your VB program generate the python
program on-the-fly, then just run it through the interpreter.


> If it doesn't, how could I get VB to directly pass commands to the
> Python command line and then automatically
> extract the outputs? Shelling out from VB to Python would be tough to
> the command line I think, since the Python command line uses the
> 'Edit / Mark, Paste' approach to inserting, copy inputs, outputs and 
> this would be virtually untenable, as far as I can tell to automate
> in a VB shell out routine.

This is basically what I'm advocating, but write the program into a file
rather than try to interact directly with the python interpreter.


Hope that helps,


   Ryan


-- 
Ryan Kelly
http://www.rfk.id.au  |  This message is digitally signed. Please visit
ryan at rfk.id.au        |  http://www.rfk.id.au/ramblings/gpg/ for details

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From brucedecoy-post at yahoo.com.au  Sun Apr  2 13:26:52 2006
From: brucedecoy-post at yahoo.com.au (brucedecoy-post at yahoo.com.au)
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 21:26:52 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Python, VB math simple problem
Message-ID: <20060402112652.90503.qmail@web60214.mail.yahoo.com>

I'm not convinced I understand your spec., but here's
an attempt.
You will need to do some testing and tweaking.

BTW, are you aware of the imminent Python 2.5
licensing change?
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2006/04/python-25-licensing-change.html

HTH,
Bruce

---------------8<------------------
#!/usr/local/bin/python

import sys

x = int(sys.argv[1])
denom = int(sys.argv[2])

y = int(10000*((x % denom) / float(denom)))
w = x / denom
z = (w%10)+1
a = (z % denom) / float(denom)

print "%sL %s" % (y, a)



	

	
		
____________________________________________________ 
On Yahoo!7 
Messenger - Make free PC-to-PC calls to your friends overseas. 
http://au.messenger.yahoo.com 


From miked at dewhirst.com.au  Wed Apr  5 11:52:27 2006
From: miked at dewhirst.com.au (Mike Dewhirst)
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 19:52:27 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] webware question
Message-ID: <4433935B.5090802@dewhirst.com.au>

I am investigating Webware with a view to build a highly scalable 
application (Linux + Apache + Firebird) and I wonder if members of the 
group have any views on it pro or con.

	http://www.webwareforpython.org/

Off-list is fine if you don't wish to broadcast.

Thanks

Mike

From miked at dewhirst.com.au  Wed Apr 12 02:12:07 2006
From: miked at dewhirst.com.au (Mike Dewhirst)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 10:12:07 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] web framework advice
Message-ID: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>

Hi guys

I'm looking for a web framework. Does anyone have experience with any of 
the following ...

     WebWare
     TurboGears
     Karigell
     Others I haven't looked at but you have

The infrastructure I like is Linux, Apache, Kinterbasdb + Firebird. In 
case you are wondering, the licensing and very low ongoing admin effort 
for Firebird is behind that choice.

At the moment I'm leaning towards WebWare but that is just because I 
have looked at it a little bit and it seems theoretically OK. It has an 
app server which sits behind Apache and replaces CGI for scalability 
reasons.

Karigell works but uses its own web server and DBMS. Although I could 
put it behind Apache I'm not sure about the effort to slide Firebird 
underneath.

I have heard that TurboGears is brilliant but I worry about "magic" (I 
read that as complex) glue between componentry supplied by different 
teams. Haven't looked at it really so I shouldn't be saying that.

I would like to ask about ...

     1. Development complexity (I know, mmmv)
     2. Scalability
     3. Security against black hats

Thanks for any insights

Mike

From mauriceling at acm.org  Wed Apr 12 03:06:05 2006
From: mauriceling at acm.org (Maurice Ling)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:06:05 +0800
Subject: [melbourne-pug] web framework advice
In-Reply-To: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>
Message-ID: <443C527D.9030600@acm.org>

Hi Mike,

 From what I know, TurboGears uses CherryPy at the backend. It can be 
seen as a site-builder using CherryPy. However, Being Python-based, 
Karigell and TurboGears have a simplified way to link to SQLlite and Gadfly.

I've not really done any real web development before. Nevertheless, 
looking at some other people's experiences, the database backend is 
irrelevant to the web server or application server.

I am in full support of Firebird, you know that... :P

It may be possible to use mod_python in Apache to do that link. I 
believe using any forms of data management backend has no relevance to 
Apache. Can someone comment on this?

Cheers
Maurice

Mike Dewhirst wrote:

>Hi guys
>
>I'm looking for a web framework. Does anyone have experience with any of 
>the following ...
>
>     WebWare
>     TurboGears
>     Karigell
>     Others I haven't looked at but you have
>
>The infrastructure I like is Linux, Apache, Kinterbasdb + Firebird. In 
>case you are wondering, the licensing and very low ongoing admin effort 
>for Firebird is behind that choice.
>
>At the moment I'm leaning towards WebWare but that is just because I 
>have looked at it a little bit and it seems theoretically OK. It has an 
>app server which sits behind Apache and replaces CGI for scalability 
>reasons.
>
>Karigell works but uses its own web server and DBMS. Although I could 
>put it behind Apache I'm not sure about the effort to slide Firebird 
>underneath.
>
>I have heard that TurboGears is brilliant but I worry about "magic" (I 
>read that as complex) glue between componentry supplied by different 
>teams. Haven't looked at it really so I shouldn't be saying that.
>
>I would like to ask about ...
>
>     1. Development complexity (I know, mmmv)
>     2. Scalability
>     3. Security against black hats
>
>Thanks for any insights
>
>Mike
>_______________________________________________
>melbourne-pug mailing list
>melbourne-pug at python.org
>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>
>  
>


From tennessee at tennessee.id.au  Wed Apr 12 03:33:25 2006
From: tennessee at tennessee.id.au (Tennessee Leeuwenburg)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:33:25 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>
Message-ID: <443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>

Hi all,

It looks like the regular meetings have fallen by the wayside, unless
they've been going on without any associated mailing list chatter.

I'd quite like to see a little more life in MPUG, I don't know if anyone
else agrees. I found the regular meetings a bit tough to attend because
I work full-time and have quite a lot of time demands in my home life.

To that end, perhaps I could offer to collate and edit some articles
into an e-magazine, perhaps bringing the first issue into existence
around June 1? I would be happy to do put such a thing together, and if
anyone has any articles, cookbook recipes or even simple ideas, please
feel free to contact me. The existence of a magazine of this kind might
help people feel a bit more connected? Also, if any of the more
long-standing members of MPUG would care to contribute an article on the
history of mpug, or personal accounts, that would be great.

If people think this is a bad idea, feel free to let me know that, also.
Crocker's rules are fine by me.

Anyone interested in my background can examine my largely defunct blog
which I maintained actively for a year, at
melbournephilosopher.blogspot.com. I don't have any webspace currently,
so I haven't got an ego page up right now.

Cheers,
-T


From ryan at rfk.id.au  Wed Apr 12 04:08:32 2006
From: ryan at rfk.id.au (Ryan Kelly)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:08:32 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] web framework advice
In-Reply-To: <443C527D.9030600@acm.org>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>  <443C527D.9030600@acm.org>
Message-ID: <1144807712.18184.22.camel@grapefruit>

> >
> >I'm looking for a web framework. Does anyone have experience with any of 
> >the following ...
> >
> >     WebWare
> >     TurboGears
> >     Karigell
> >     Others I haven't looked at but you have


 I have used TurboGears to build my personal website (see link in my
sig) and was very pleased with it.  The combination of Kid templates and
the CherryPy publishing model was a very good fit for my head - it all
just made sense.  I cant speak to scalability or performance really, but
it did find development quick and painless.

 My setup uses sqlite as the relational database simply because I don't
need anything more powerful - but moving to another database would be a
one-line configuration change.

 I have the cherrypy standalone server running on localhost:8080, with
apache forwarding requests to it via mod_rewrite.  Works a treat.  I
believe other deployment options are possible.

 Don't forget the 20-minute-wiki screencast if you want to get a feel
for operating  under turbogears:

    http://files.turbogears.org/video/20MinuteWiki.mov

>
>I have heard that TurboGears is brilliant but I worry about "magic" (I 
>read that as complex) glue between componentry supplied by different 
>teams. 
>

 For the most part, read "magic" as "it just works seamlessly and
painlessly".  I've found the magic to be pretty low complexity for the
most part.  Quick example of the magic:

   * in vanilla CherryPy, you expose methods  like so:

            @expose
            def some_page():
               return "page contents"

      Your methods return strings containing the page contents.
   
   * in TurboGears, your exposed methods are associated with a template:

           @expose(template="mysite.templates.main")
           def some_page():
               vals = {}
               vals["title"] = "Page Title"
               vals["body"] = "Body Contents"
               return vals

      They return a dictionary of values that automatically appear
      in the namespace of the template, ready to be inserted.


  I think this is a great combination of two powerful technologies.

  So, TurboGears gets a thumbs up from me.  My original website was
written directly using CherryPy + a templating engine (SimpleTAL), which
was fun but a lot of work.  Moving to TurboGears made things much
easier.  I haven't tried other frameworks for comparison purposes.

  A few words of warning though:

   * TurboGears functionality is scattered throughout the namespaces of
its componenets.  In order to do simple things, you often need to access
modules under the turbogears, cherrpy, and sqlobject packages.
Understandable why this is the case, but confusing to read...

   * TurboGears is growing quickly.  There is an upcoming 0.9 release
featuring loads of wacky new functionality like Widgets (very neat
looking, by the way), CRUD data management, etc etc etc.  Expect some
API breakage on the way towards version 1.0

   * According to rumour, some people find Kid templates abominably
slow, some people find them really fast.  It's been fine for me, but
then I'm not exactly serving millions of hits on my personal site :-).
YMMV, but be prepared for the possibility of a lot of template tweaking
if you want good performance.


  Please let us know what you end up choosing, and what you think of it
a few months down the track :-)


  Cheers,

     Ryan



-- 
Ryan Kelly
http://www.rfk.id.au  |  This message is digitally signed. Please visit
ryan at rfk.id.au        |  http://www.rfk.id.au/ramblings/gpg/ for details

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From mauriceling at acm.org  Wed Apr 12 04:21:06 2006
From: mauriceling at acm.org (Maurice Ling)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 10:21:06 +0800
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>
	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>
Message-ID: <443C6412.1080205@acm.org>

Hi,

I'm away from Melbourne for 7 months and will only be back next month, 
so I must admit that I've not been following up the happenings.

>To that end, perhaps I could offer to collate and edit some articles
>into an e-magazine, perhaps bringing the first issue into existence
>around June 1? I would be happy to do put such a thing together, and if
>anyone has any articles, cookbook recipes or even simple ideas, please
>feel free to contact me. The existence of a magazine of this kind might
>help people feel a bit more connected? Also, if any of the more
>long-standing members of MPUG would care to contribute an article on the
>history of mpug, or personal accounts, that would be great.
>
>If people think this is a bad idea, feel free to let me know that, also.
>Crocker's rules are fine by me.
>  
>
I am largely in favour of this. I feel that in the OSS community, there 
is still a substantial lack of documentation and support for getting 
materials out into the public.

This Melbourne Python Users' Bulletin (or letters) may be a collection 
of published case studies or personal experiences and tutorial-like 
articles. From an academic perspective, I believe that at least the 
technical contents needs to be correct before "publishing", so even 
though it is not a real academic journal, some forms of "technical 
peer-reviewing" needs to take place.

I've also just did an initial proposal to Firebird Foundation about 
starting a peer-reviewed journal. (Let's talk about this off-list if you 
are interested) But I think the administration and moderation are the same.

I can offer my assistance to this e-zine as a form of associate editor 
or sort if needed.

Cheers
Maurice

From miked at dewhirst.com.au  Wed Apr 12 06:46:28 2006
From: miked at dewhirst.com.au (Mike Dewhirst)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:46:28 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C6412.1080205@acm.org>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>
	<443C6412.1080205@acm.org>
Message-ID: <443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>

Maurice Ling wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm away from Melbourne for 7 months and will only be back next month, 
> so I must admit that I've not been following up the happenings.

I live here and have missed maybe one or two meetings and the last 
meeting I did attend in Fitzroy didn't quite make a quorum :)

>> To that end, perhaps I could offer to collate and edit some articles
>> into an e-magazine, perhaps bringing the first issue into existence
>> around June 1? I would be happy to do put such a thing together, 

That is generous - standing ovation from me |||||||

and if
>> anyone has any articles, cookbook recipes or even simple ideas, please
>> feel free to contact me. The existence of a magazine of this kind might
>> help people feel a bit more connected? Also, if any of the more
>> long-standing members of MPUG would care to contribute an article on the
>> history of mpug, or personal accounts, that would be great.
>>
>> If people think this is a bad idea, feel free to let me know that, also.
>> Crocker's rules are fine by me.

Not in python space and especially not in Melbourne! We vote with our 
feet :) See standing ovation above.

>>  
>>
> I am largely in favour of this. I feel that in the OSS community, there 
> is still a substantial lack of documentation and support for getting 
> materials out into the public.

I strongly agree. I'd like to see an open source knowledge transfer 
system. More on that in a later discussion.

> This Melbourne Python Users' Bulletin (or letters) may be a collection 
> of published case studies or personal experiences and tutorial-like 
> articles. From an academic perspective, I believe that at least the 
> technical contents needs to be correct before "publishing", so even 
> though it is not a real academic journal, some forms of "technical 
> peer-reviewing" needs to take place.

Are you suggesting a mail-list review?

Just thinking out loud, I reckon peer review is brilliant in terms of 
you guys telling me where I'm going wrong when I show you what I'm 
doing. That is because my objective (not necessarily anyone else's) is 
to learn and improve my skills in a much more immediate time frame than 
would be possible within any formal or academic peer review situation.

Speaking for myself, I would strongly support mail-list review of 
whatever gets offered. That is where I would gain the most knowledge. I 
desperately want to see debate and constructive criticism of everyone's 
offerings because I know that's how I'll learn. Just seeing the polished 
outcome in the e-zine would not teach me as much. I'm not against polish 
I just wanna learn.

In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
incalculable.

There is definitely a niche for polished peer reviewed stuff. Just last 
night I placed an order on Amazon for O'Reilly's Python Cookbook. The 
cred of the reviewers looks impeccable to me and that is what persuaded 
me to spend hard-earned money. Even so, I also visit the ASPN website 
for recipes because I see peer review debate and commentary there as well.

I think I'm saying we sacrifice bandwidth in the knowledge transfer game 
when we add formality. IMHO, absolute best and broadest knowledge 
transfer bandwidth is face-to-face discussion with whiteboards on hand. 
Next best is either Professor Google or a mail list like this. The 
narrowest knowledge transfer bandwidth is to buy and read a book. I'm 
not saying anything about the quality of the knowledge - just the speed 
and relevance at the time.

A peer reviewed e-zine would be great. The peer review would be better 
provided people got in and criticised with gusto. Maybe Crocker's Rules 
should apply (:

> 
> I've also just did an initial proposal to Firebird Foundation about 
> starting a peer-reviewed journal. (Let's talk about this off-list if you 
> are interested) 

Don't be shy - I would be more comfortable being included (or lurking) 
in the discussion.

Run with it ...

Mike


But I think the administration and moderation are the same.
> 
> I can offer my assistance to this e-zine as a form of associate editor 
> or sort if needed.
> 
> Cheers
> Maurice
> _______________________________________________
> melbourne-pug mailing list
> melbourne-pug at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
> 
> 


From miked at dewhirst.com.au  Wed Apr 12 07:36:26 2006
From: miked at dewhirst.com.au (Mike Dewhirst)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:36:26 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] web framework advice
In-Reply-To: <443C527D.9030600@acm.org>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au> <443C527D.9030600@acm.org>
Message-ID: <443C91DA.4010108@dewhirst.com.au>

Maurice Ling wrote:
> Hi Mike,
> 
>  From what I know, TurboGears uses CherryPy at the backend. It can be 
> seen as a site-builder using CherryPy. However, Being Python-based, 
> Karigell and TurboGears have a simplified way to link to SQLlite and Gadfly.
> 
> I've not really done any real web development before. Nevertheless, 
> looking at some other people's experiences, the database backend is 
> irrelevant to the web server or application server.
> 
> I am in full support of Firebird, you know that... :P
> 
> It may be possible to use mod_python in Apache to do that link. I 
> believe using any forms of data management backend has no relevance to 
> Apache. Can someone comment on this?

Thanks Maurice

You are right. The application software does the database work and 
Apache just serves the constructed page.

SQLite or Gadfly would probably do the trick initially. However I will 
need to think about slipping Firebird in there at some point.

I have just done a demo version of the app using the file system for 
persistence all the time thinking I would separate that out later but I 
now find it is impossible. I took too many yagni shortcuts telling 
myself it was a throwaway demo. But I had to add a lot of features I 
hadn't expected and now I'm reluctant to throw it all out.

What I'm saying is the production version has to be better thought 
through with a view to ongoing maintenance and if I can predict it needs 
Firebird for scalability, licensing and low support overhead then I 
should figure that in from the start.

Regards

mike
> 
> Cheers
> Maurice
> 
> Mike Dewhirst wrote:
> 
>> Hi guys
>>
>> I'm looking for a web framework. Does anyone have experience with any of 
>> the following ...
>>
>>     WebWare
>>     TurboGears
>>     Karigell
>>     Others I haven't looked at but you have
>>
>> The infrastructure I like is Linux, Apache, Kinterbasdb + Firebird. In 
>> case you are wondering, the licensing and very low ongoing admin effort 
>> for Firebird is behind that choice.
>>
>> At the moment I'm leaning towards WebWare but that is just because I 
>> have looked at it a little bit and it seems theoretically OK. It has an 
>> app server which sits behind Apache and replaces CGI for scalability 
>> reasons.
>>
>> Karigell works but uses its own web server and DBMS. Although I could 
>> put it behind Apache I'm not sure about the effort to slide Firebird 
>> underneath.
>>
>> I have heard that TurboGears is brilliant but I worry about "magic" (I 
>> read that as complex) glue between componentry supplied by different 
>> teams. Haven't looked at it really so I shouldn't be saying that.
>>
>> I would like to ask about ...
>>
>>     1. Development complexity (I know, mmmv)
>>     2. Scalability
>>     3. Security against black hats
>>
>> Thanks for any insights
>>
>> Mike
>> _______________________________________________
>> melbourne-pug mailing list
>> melbourne-pug at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>>
>>  
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> melbourne-pug mailing list
> melbourne-pug at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
> 
> 


From tennessee at tennessee.id.au  Wed Apr 12 08:23:40 2006
From: tennessee at tennessee.id.au (Tennessee Leeuwenburg)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:23:40 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>	<443C6412.1080205@acm.org>
	<443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
Message-ID: <443C9CEC.4070603@tennessee.id.au>

Thanks for the 2 strong votes of confidence.

I also vote for some form of peer-review. I'd love to not to that peer 
review myself, so getting the list to do it makes sense. I think it's 
(a) nice to have something of yours published and thought thoroughly 
about, and (b) interesting to see people's opinions of things. A 
mailing-list review is the easiest. We need a candidate piece of code + 
short article from the originator, in the form of "An abstract", "the 
code", "a discussion", "something chatty". I'm happy to take that as a 
loosely formatted email to myself, edit it in preparation for peer 
review, then take random mailing list emails and turn them into some 
kind of coherent narrative.

That could probably form the kernel of the bulletin, around which an 
e-zine could proudly grow. I believe we have the people here to do 
something that each of us would be pleased to be associated with, 
without it being an excessive burden on any one individual.

"In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
incalculable."

Well, that would be great. Perhaps it would get to the point where 
people *wanted* to submit code for review in order to improve it. It 
could also spark discussion on hard problems, etc.

As an aside, I bought the ASPN Cookbook and have already found it 
invaluable. I find it much more useable than the online version, because 
of the degree of quality control and polish. I am at the point where I 
don't need a zen master to improve a whole program, I just need a better 
way to do X, because I can't think how do to X elegantly without a 
little help. Polish lets you "zoom in" on the most important component, 
and if you're good enough (most people are), you can take that and make 
your own code that much better. That's just my 2c, of course.

A piece on big issues in Open Source and/or Python would be neat, there 
are lots of things I could think of.

Cheers,
-T

Mike Dewhirst wrote:
> Maurice Ling wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm away from Melbourne for 7 months and will only be back next month, 
>> so I must admit that I've not been following up the happenings.
>>     
>
> I live here and have missed maybe one or two meetings and the last 
> meeting I did attend in Fitzroy didn't quite make a quorum :)
>
>   
>>> To that end, perhaps I could offer to collate and edit some articles
>>> into an e-magazine, perhaps bringing the first issue into existence
>>> around June 1? I would be happy to do put such a thing together, 
>>>       
>
> That is generous - standing ovation from me |||||||
>
> and if
>   
>>> anyone has any articles, cookbook recipes or even simple ideas, please
>>> feel free to contact me. The existence of a magazine of this kind might
>>> help people feel a bit more connected? Also, if any of the more
>>> long-standing members of MPUG would care to contribute an article on the
>>> history of mpug, or personal accounts, that would be great.
>>>
>>> If people think this is a bad idea, feel free to let me know that, also.
>>> Crocker's rules are fine by me.
>>>       
>
> Not in python space and especially not in Melbourne! We vote with our 
> feet :) See standing ovation above.
>
>   
>>>  
>>>
>>>       
>> I am largely in favour of this. I feel that in the OSS community, there 
>> is still a substantial lack of documentation and support for getting 
>> materials out into the public.
>>     
>
> I strongly agree. I'd like to see an open source knowledge transfer 
> system. More on that in a later discussion.
>
>   
>> This Melbourne Python Users' Bulletin (or letters) may be a collection 
>> of published case studies or personal experiences and tutorial-like 
>> articles. From an academic perspective, I believe that at least the 
>> technical contents needs to be correct before "publishing", so even 
>> though it is not a real academic journal, some forms of "technical 
>> peer-reviewing" needs to take place.
>>     
>
> Are you suggesting a mail-list review?
>
> Just thinking out loud, I reckon peer review is brilliant in terms of 
> you guys telling me where I'm going wrong when I show you what I'm 
> doing. That is because my objective (not necessarily anyone else's) is 
> to learn and improve my skills in a much more immediate time frame than 
> would be possible within any formal or academic peer review situation.
>
> Speaking for myself, I would strongly support mail-list review of 
> whatever gets offered. That is where I would gain the most knowledge. I 
> desperately want to see debate and constructive criticism of everyone's 
> offerings because I know that's how I'll learn. Just seeing the polished 
> outcome in the e-zine would not teach me as much. I'm not against polish 
> I just wanna learn.
>
> In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
> enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
> incalculable.
>
> There is definitely a niche for polished peer reviewed stuff. Just last 
> night I placed an order on Amazon for O'Reilly's Python Cookbook. The 
> cred of the reviewers looks impeccable to me and that is what persuaded 
> me to spend hard-earned money. Even so, I also visit the ASPN website 
> for recipes because I see peer review debate and commentary there as well.
>
> I think I'm saying we sacrifice bandwidth in the knowledge transfer game 
> when we add formality. IMHO, absolute best and broadest knowledge 
> transfer bandwidth is face-to-face discussion with whiteboards on hand. 
> Next best is either Professor Google or a mail list like this. The 
> narrowest knowledge transfer bandwidth is to buy and read a book. I'm 
> not saying anything about the quality of the knowledge - just the speed 
> and relevance at the time.
>
> A peer reviewed e-zine would be great. The peer review would be better 
> provided people got in and criticised with gusto. Maybe Crocker's Rules 
> should apply (:
>
>   
>> I've also just did an initial proposal to Firebird Foundation about 
>> starting a peer-reviewed journal. (Let's talk about this off-list if you 
>> are interested) 
>>     
>
> Don't be shy - I would be more comfortable being included (or lurking) 
> in the discussion.
>
> Run with it ...
>
> Mike
>
>
> But I think the administration and moderation are the same.
>   
>> I can offer my assistance to this e-zine as a form of associate editor 
>> or sort if needed.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Maurice
>> _______________________________________________
>> melbourne-pug mailing list
>> melbourne-pug at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>>
>>
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> melbourne-pug mailing list
> melbourne-pug at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>
>   


From tennessee at tennessee.id.au  Wed Apr 12 08:30:15 2006
From: tennessee at tennessee.id.au (Tennessee Leeuwenburg)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:30:15 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C9CEC.4070603@tennessee.id.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>	<443C6412.1080205@acm.org>	<443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
	<443C9CEC.4070603@tennessee.id.au>
Message-ID: <443C9E77.7080000@tennessee.id.au>

I'd love to not do... sorry typo

Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote:
> Thanks for the 2 strong votes of confidence.
>
> I also vote for some form of peer-review. I'd love to not to that peer 
> review myself, so getting the list to do it makes sense. I think it's 
> (a) nice to have something of yours published and thought thoroughly 
> about, and (b) interesting to see people's opinions of things. A 
> mailing-list review is the easiest. We need a candidate piece of code + 
> short article from the originator, in the form of "An abstract", "the 
> code", "a discussion", "something chatty". I'm happy to take that as a 
> loosely formatted email to myself, edit it in preparation for peer 
> review, then take random mailing list emails and turn them into some 
> kind of coherent narrative.
>
> That could probably form the kernel of the bulletin, around which an 
> e-zine could proudly grow. I believe we have the people here to do 
> something that each of us would be pleased to be associated with, 
> without it being an excessive burden on any one individual.
>
> "In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
> enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
> incalculable."
>
> Well, that would be great. Perhaps it would get to the point where 
> people *wanted* to submit code for review in order to improve it. It 
> could also spark discussion on hard problems, etc.
>
> As an aside, I bought the ASPN Cookbook and have already found it 
> invaluable. I find it much more useable than the online version, because 
> of the degree of quality control and polish. I am at the point where I 
> don't need a zen master to improve a whole program, I just need a better 
> way to do X, because I can't think how do to X elegantly without a 
> little help. Polish lets you "zoom in" on the most important component, 
> and if you're good enough (most people are), you can take that and make 
> your own code that much better. That's just my 2c, of course.
>
> A piece on big issues in Open Source and/or Python would be neat, there 
> are lots of things I could think of.
>
> Cheers,
> -T
>
> Mike Dewhirst wrote:
>   
>> Maurice Ling wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm away from Melbourne for 7 months and will only be back next month, 
>>> so I must admit that I've not been following up the happenings.
>>>     
>>>       
>> I live here and have missed maybe one or two meetings and the last 
>> meeting I did attend in Fitzroy didn't quite make a quorum :)
>>
>>   
>>     
>>>> To that end, perhaps I could offer to collate and edit some articles
>>>> into an e-magazine, perhaps bringing the first issue into existence
>>>> around June 1? I would be happy to do put such a thing together, 
>>>>       
>>>>         
>> That is generous - standing ovation from me |||||||
>>
>> and if
>>   
>>     
>>>> anyone has any articles, cookbook recipes or even simple ideas, please
>>>> feel free to contact me. The existence of a magazine of this kind might
>>>> help people feel a bit more connected? Also, if any of the more
>>>> long-standing members of MPUG would care to contribute an article on the
>>>> history of mpug, or personal accounts, that would be great.
>>>>
>>>> If people think this is a bad idea, feel free to let me know that, also.
>>>> Crocker's rules are fine by me.
>>>>       
>>>>         
>> Not in python space and especially not in Melbourne! We vote with our 
>> feet :) See standing ovation above.
>>
>>   
>>     
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> I am largely in favour of this. I feel that in the OSS community, there 
>>> is still a substantial lack of documentation and support for getting 
>>> materials out into the public.
>>>     
>>>       
>> I strongly agree. I'd like to see an open source knowledge transfer 
>> system. More on that in a later discussion.
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> This Melbourne Python Users' Bulletin (or letters) may be a collection 
>>> of published case studies or personal experiences and tutorial-like 
>>> articles. From an academic perspective, I believe that at least the 
>>> technical contents needs to be correct before "publishing", so even 
>>> though it is not a real academic journal, some forms of "technical 
>>> peer-reviewing" needs to take place.
>>>     
>>>       
>> Are you suggesting a mail-list review?
>>
>> Just thinking out loud, I reckon peer review is brilliant in terms of 
>> you guys telling me where I'm going wrong when I show you what I'm 
>> doing. That is because my objective (not necessarily anyone else's) is 
>> to learn and improve my skills in a much more immediate time frame than 
>> would be possible within any formal or academic peer review situation.
>>
>> Speaking for myself, I would strongly support mail-list review of 
>> whatever gets offered. That is where I would gain the most knowledge. I 
>> desperately want to see debate and constructive criticism of everyone's 
>> offerings because I know that's how I'll learn. Just seeing the polished 
>> outcome in the e-zine would not teach me as much. I'm not against polish 
>> I just wanna learn.
>>
>> In fact I would be happy to submit my own puny efforts and suffer 
>> enormous embarrassment in the process. The benefit to me would be 
>> incalculable.
>>
>> There is definitely a niche for polished peer reviewed stuff. Just last 
>> night I placed an order on Amazon for O'Reilly's Python Cookbook. The 
>> cred of the reviewers looks impeccable to me and that is what persuaded 
>> me to spend hard-earned money. Even so, I also visit the ASPN website 
>> for recipes because I see peer review debate and commentary there as well.
>>
>> I think I'm saying we sacrifice bandwidth in the knowledge transfer game 
>> when we add formality. IMHO, absolute best and broadest knowledge 
>> transfer bandwidth is face-to-face discussion with whiteboards on hand. 
>> Next best is either Professor Google or a mail list like this. The 
>> narrowest knowledge transfer bandwidth is to buy and read a book. I'm 
>> not saying anything about the quality of the knowledge - just the speed 
>> and relevance at the time.
>>
>> A peer reviewed e-zine would be great. The peer review would be better 
>> provided people got in and criticised with gusto. Maybe Crocker's Rules 
>> should apply (:
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> I've also just did an initial proposal to Firebird Foundation about 
>>> starting a peer-reviewed journal. (Let's talk about this off-list if you 
>>> are interested) 
>>>     
>>>       
>> Don't be shy - I would be more comfortable being included (or lurking) 
>> in the discussion.
>>
>> Run with it ...
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> But I think the administration and moderation are the same.
>>   
>>     
>>> I can offer my assistance to this e-zine as a form of associate editor 
>>> or sort if needed.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Maurice
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> melbourne-pug mailing list
>>> melbourne-pug at python.org
>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>>>
>>>
>>>     
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> melbourne-pug mailing list
>> melbourne-pug at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>>
>>   
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> melbourne-pug mailing list
> melbourne-pug at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>
>   


From miked at dewhirst.com.au  Wed Apr 12 08:50:35 2006
From: miked at dewhirst.com.au (Mike Dewhirst)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:50:35 +1000
Subject: [melbourne-pug] web framework advice
In-Reply-To: <1144807712.18184.22.camel@grapefruit>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au> <443C527D.9030600@acm.org>
	<1144807712.18184.22.camel@grapefruit>
Message-ID: <443CA33B.8000905@dewhirst.com.au>

Ryan Kelly wrote:
>>> I'm looking for a web framework. Does anyone have experience with any of 
>>> the following ...
>>>
>>>     WebWare
>>>     TurboGears
>>>     Karigell
>>>     Others I haven't looked at but you have
> 
> 
>  I have used TurboGears to build my personal website (see link in my
> sig) and was very pleased with it.  The combination of Kid templates and
> the CherryPy publishing model was a very good fit for my head - it all
> just made sense.  I cant speak to scalability or performance really, but
> it did find development quick and painless.
> 
>  My setup uses sqlite as the relational database simply because I don't
> need anything more powerful - but moving to another database would be a
> one-line configuration change.

Presumably it is DB 2.0 compliant.

> 
>  I have the cherrypy standalone server running on localhost:8080, with
> apache forwarding requests to it via mod_rewrite.  Works a treat.  I
> believe other deployment options are possible.

WebWare uses a similar approach with mod_webkit which knows about the 
webkit application server.

> 
>  Don't forget the 20-minute-wiki screencast if you want to get a feel
> for operating  under turbogears:
> 
>     http://files.turbogears.org/video/20MinuteWiki.mov

I'll check that out tonight.

> 
>> I have heard that TurboGears is brilliant but I worry about "magic" (I 
>> read that as complex) glue between componentry supplied by different 
>> teams. 
>>
> 
>  For the most part, read "magic" as "it just works seamlessly and
> painlessly".  I've found the magic to be pretty low complexity for the
> most part.  Quick example of the magic:
> 
>    * in vanilla CherryPy, you expose methods  like so:
> 
>             @expose
>             def some_page():
>                return "page contents"
> 
>       Your methods return strings containing the page contents.
>    
>    * in TurboGears, your exposed methods are associated with a template:
> 
>            @expose(template="mysite.templates.main")
>            def some_page():
>                vals = {}
>                vals["title"] = "Page Title"
>                vals["body"] = "Body Contents"
>                return vals
> 
>       They return a dictionary of values that automatically appear
>       in the namespace of the template, ready to be inserted.

OK I think I understand this. My home grown efforts are structured along 
similar lines. I used ordinary html pages (made with dreamweaver) as 
templates and a dictionary to collect and/or populate cgi variables. I 
had to build a method to merge the dictionary into the page which I read 
off disk into a list and then served.

> 
>   I think this is a great combination of two powerful technologies.
> 
>   So, TurboGears gets a thumbs up from me.  My original website was
> written directly using CherryPy + a templating engine (SimpleTAL), which
> was fun but a lot of work.  Moving to TurboGears made things much
> easier.  I haven't tried other frameworks for comparison purposes.

It seems to me that WebWare is a complete system built with all (or 
most) components intended to interface in a more or less purist python 
OO manner. At first glance it feels sort of heavy duty in that it is 
layered like the MVC pattern intends. I just don't know enough python or 
OO or patterns to make valid judgements about the amount of work. I 
certainly like the *idea* of doing things in a purist way.

> 
>   A few words of warning though:
> 
>    * TurboGears functionality is scattered throughout the namespaces of
> its componenets.  In order to do simple things, you often need to access
> modules under the turbogears, cherrpy, and sqlobject packages.
> Understandable why this is the case, but confusing to read...

I'm easily confused at the best of times ...

> 
>    * TurboGears is growing quickly.  There is an upcoming 0.9 release
> featuring loads of wacky new functionality like Widgets (very neat
> looking, by the way), CRUD data management, etc etc etc.  Expect some
> API breakage on the way towards version 1.0
> 
>    * According to rumour, some people find Kid templates abominably
> slow, some people find them really fast.  It's been fine for me, but
> then I'm not exactly serving millions of hits on my personal site :-).
> YMMV, but be prepared for the possibility of a lot of template tweaking
> if you want good performance.

Maybe I need to learn about kid. Webware mentions them too. They have a 
kidkit whatever that might be.

> 
>   Please let us know what you end up choosing, and what you think of it
> a few months down the track :-)

Certainly. However, I would love to hear about any comparisons anyone 
has seen around.

Google turned this up for me ...

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/baypiggies/2005-December/000051.html

http://www.blueskyonmars.com/2005/09/21/turbogears-on-day-4-and-some-jeremy-jones-commentary/

The bottom line of most things I've seen on the web is that TurboGears 
and Ruby-on-Rails are the "happening" things. I'm more interested in 
choosing a technology in which to invest my limited time/brainspace.

Thanks Ryan

Mike

> 
> 
>   Cheers,
> 
>      Ryan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> melbourne-pug mailing list
> melbourne-pug at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug


From mauriceling at acm.org  Wed Apr 12 13:55:34 2006
From: mauriceling at acm.org (Maurice Ling)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:55:34 +0800
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>	<443C6412.1080205@acm.org>
	<443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
Message-ID: <443CEAB6.8050806@acm.org>


>>This Melbourne Python Users' Bulletin (or letters) may be a collection 
>>of published case studies or personal experiences and tutorial-like 
>>articles. From an academic perspective, I believe that at least the 
>>technical contents needs to be correct before "publishing", so even 
>>though it is not a real academic journal, some forms of "technical 
>>peer-reviewing" needs to take place.
>>    
>>
>
>Are you suggesting a mail-list review?
>  
>
I am not familiar with the dynamics of mail-list review. Do you mean 
that the articles or codes (in the form of letters) received by the 
Editor be sent to this list for group reviewing?

>Just thinking out loud, I reckon peer review is brilliant in terms of 
>you guys telling me where I'm going wrong when I show you what I'm 
>doing. That is because my objective (not necessarily anyone else's) is 
>to learn and improve my skills in a much more immediate time frame than 
>would be possible within any formal or academic peer review situation.
>  
>
In academic settings, usually the real review takes 2 hours but the 
paper can take weeks collecting dust on the reviewer's table.

Yes, a group review or mail-list review (as I understood it) will be 
beneficial for learning. But I am also concerned about time needed for a 
fruitful debate in this list. If we are going down this path, can I 
suggest that the Editor makes the final remarks in 7 calendar days from 
1st post to this list? If anyone had missed out on the reviewing but 
strongly feels about the finalized article, please submit another article.

I feel that I have to declare myself here. I vote strongly in favour of 
technical peer-review because I arise from the academia. For me, the 
goal is to produce peer-reviewed publications, which translates to more 
research funds (buying better books). Even if we use a mail-list 
peer-review model, we just state precisely how we work, and with proper 
front matter to the e-zine (listing the reviewers and with ISSN), it is 
usually accepted by the university as peer-reviewed articles.

Such publications will matter for undergraduates trying to get scholarships.

On the research fund side, let me illustrate an example. The Australian 
Undergraduate Students' Computing Conference (AUSCC) started in 2003 in 
Melbourne University, and although we did not reject any papers 
(revisions yes, there wasn't any papers that is truely unreadable or 
technically flawed to be rejected) but with proper front matter with 
reviewers' names and an ISBN, it was accepted as a peer-reviewed 
publication and my department received 350 for the paper I published in 
that conference then.

>There is definitely a niche for polished peer reviewed stuff. Just last 
>night I placed an order on Amazon for O'Reilly's Python Cookbook. The 
>cred of the reviewers looks impeccable to me and that is what persuaded 
>me to spend hard-earned money. Even so, I also visit the ASPN website 
>for recipes because I see peer review debate and commentary there as well.
>  
>
By peer reviewing, I least I know those codes work as intended (and did 
not mix up standard deviation with variance).

>I think I'm saying we sacrifice bandwidth in the knowledge transfer game 
>when we add formality. IMHO, absolute best and broadest knowledge 
>transfer bandwidth is face-to-face discussion with whiteboards on hand. 
>Next best is either Professor Google or a mail list like this. The 
>narrowest knowledge transfer bandwidth is to buy and read a book. I'm 
>not saying anything about the quality of the knowledge - just the speed 
>and relevance at the time.
>  
>
I agree.

>A peer reviewed e-zine would be great. The peer review would be better 
>provided people got in and criticised with gusto. Maybe Crocker's Rules 
>should apply (:
>
>  
>
I support with gusto that peer-reviewed e-zine will be great but I do 
feel that Crocker's Rules do breed arrogance to a certain extend.

 From some of the rejections I get for my paper submissions, it is 
obvious that the reviewers do not understand my work at all. And I got 
rejected on the basis of my paper was poorly written (no explanations) 
and my maths symbols are not nice!!!

>>I've also just did an initial proposal to Firebird Foundation about 
>>starting a peer-reviewed journal. (Let's talk about this off-list if you 
>>are interested) 
>>    
>>
>
>Don't be shy - I would be more comfortable being included (or lurking) 
>in the discussion.
>
>Run with it ...
>  
>
I think it will be far to off-topic to discuss starting a peer-reviewed 
Firebird Journal in a Python list. :)

Cheers
Maurice


From mauriceling at acm.org  Wed Apr 12 14:21:16 2006
From: mauriceling at acm.org (Maurice Ling)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 20:21:16 +0800
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Community
In-Reply-To: <443C9CEC.4070603@tennessee.id.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>	<443C6412.1080205@acm.org>	<443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
	<443C9CEC.4070603@tennessee.id.au>
Message-ID: <443CF0BC.3090508@acm.org>


>Thanks for the 2 strong votes of confidence.
>  
>
No worries

>I also vote for some form of peer-review. I'd love to not to that peer 
>review myself, so getting the list to do it makes sense. I think it's 
>(a) nice to have something of yours published and thought thoroughly 
>about, and (b) interesting to see people's opinions of things. A 
>mailing-list review is the easiest. We need a candidate piece of code + 
>short article from the originator, in the form of "An abstract", "the 
>code", "a discussion", "something chatty". I'm happy to take that as a 
>loosely formatted email to myself, edit it in preparation for peer 
>review, then take random mailing list emails and turn them into some 
>kind of coherent narrative.
>  
>
I think a short article of something of your suggestion (abstract, code, 
discussion, something chatty) is good. In fact, ACM Transactions on 
Mathematical Softwares (http://www.ccd.bnl.gov/sif/html/acmalgs.html) 
had been doing this for years. But I do not recommend yourself to format 
the article from emails, this is pure laziness on the submitters' part.

Cheers
Maurice

From mauriceling at acm.org  Thu Apr 13 05:17:58 2006
From: mauriceling at acm.org (Maurice Ling)
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:17:58 +0800
Subject: [melbourne-pug] Melbourne Python Users' Letters
In-Reply-To: <443D9BEE.9030600@tennessee.id.au>
References: <443C45D7.1040905@dewhirst.com.au>	<443C58E5.8090000@tennessee.id.au>	<443C6412.1080205@acm.org>	<443C8624.6060204@dewhirst.com.au>
	<443CEAB6.8050806@acm.org> <443D9BEE.9030600@tennessee.id.au>
Message-ID: <443DC2E6.9000307@acm.org>


>> Yes, a group review or mail-list review (as I understood it) will be 
>> beneficial for learning. But I am also concerned about time needed 
>> for a fruitful debate in this list. If we are going down this path, 
>> can I suggest that the Editor makes the final remarks in 7 calendar 
>> days from 1st post to this list? If anyone had missed out on the 
>> reviewing but strongly feels about the finalized article, please 
>> submit another article.
>>   
>
> That sounds ideal, but will work only if people are happy to do their 
> review within that 1-week time frame. If people participate, then that 
> method seems excellent to me.

I think this is a safe assumption/bet that we have to make.
As a safeguard, we can have an Editor-in-Chief and at least 1 Associate 
Editor(s).
In event whereby there is dead silence, it is then up to the 
Editor-in-Chief to review the paper himself (which he has to do or at 
least read anyway or assign to an AE to do the review.
In any case, the EIC is the dictator of the publication, he/she can veto 
AEs' and reviewers' decisions and comments. 

> I think this will require more than just the three of us, but if we 
> put in place an enticing opportunity, others may come. I have some 
> links to the Melbourne Uni Computer Student's Association, but I don't 
> know if this is quite their thing.

We can put it to Greg Lovell (President, MUCSA). I think it will be 
fantastic if they are interested to assist in the review (a good thing 
to write in resume). I presume you (Tennessee) will be the EIC, hence 
the publication decisions lie with you.

>
> Can anyone offer any suggestions for whether I should offer up some 
> kind of webpage, proof-of-concept, or summary in the short term?
>
> I'd be interested in hearing more about what is required for academic 
> peer review. Is there a document I can read outlining the 
> requirements? If so, then we could prepare a call for papers.


Few things about reviewing process have to be set in stone:
1. Open or close review. (will the paper authors know who reviewed the 
papers)
2. Will EIC do preliminary screening of the papers before putting it 
through peer review (ie, EIC can reject a submission outright, but does 
he want to do that)?
3. How many reviews before EIC makes the decision?
4. What happens is reviewers disagree?
5. Who makes final call?
6. How quickly to make first decision?
7. What happens if authors are unhappy about decision?

Other than that, we need the following:
1. Scope of publication
2. Frequency of publication
3. ISSN
4. what kinds of articles do we expect (ie. instructions to authors)? 
http://www.biomedcentral.com/independent/develop/articletypes

Cheers
Maurice

>
>
> My inclination would be to keep as much as possible out of circulation 
> in order to make the final product something exciting for people to 
> get their hands on. I would think that a reasonably attractive PDF 
> publication makes sense. Perhaps if I prepare/design a front page for 
> the issue, put it on a website as an image, and prepare some 
> information and a call for articles? Could anyone contribute 
> suggestions for what I might do in this vein?
>
> Cheers,
> -T
>


-- 
Maurice Han Tong LING, BSc(Hons)(Biochem), AdvDipComp, CPT, SSN, FIFA, 
MASBMB, MAMBIS, MACM
Doctor of Philosophy (Science) Candidate, The University of Melbourne
mobile: +61 4 22781753, +65 96669233
mailing address: Department of Zoology, The University of Melbourne
		 Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
resume: http://maurice.vodien.com/maurice_resume.pdf
www: http://www.geocities.com/beldin79/