[XML-SIG] New DOM code checked in

[Andrew M. Kuchling]

Greg Stein writes:
>A.M. Kuchling wrote:
>I would posit that you are too tentative with releases. Drop a 0.6 if

	Yeah, probably; I'm going to try to make releases more
frequent from now on.  

	That said, I want to delay a new release just a tiny bit
longer.  There are now only 2 major items left on the TODO list for
the package:

        * Namespace support for DOM 

This should only take an evening or two to implement, once we've come
up with an interface for it.  I want to do this before releasing a
0.5.1.  Namespace support for SAX can wait until the SAX2 discussions
on xml-dev converge on a specification.

        * Integrate widestring support with the PyExpat module (major thing)

Now, this is a knotty problem.  I'd really like to be able to handle
Unicode strings, but Unicode support for Python is only on the roadmap
for 1.6, and the form of this support isn't known yet.  A while back
Martin's wstring module was added to the XML package.  Subsequently,
the String-SIG briefly awoke from its torpor and considered Unicode
once more; in that round, Fredrik wrote "yet another Unicode string
class" (http://www.pythonware.com/madscientist/).  Now I have no idea
what to do; switch to using Fredrik's code and adapt PyExpat to it,
stick with Martin's module, or what?  I need to go whine at Guido...

	I want to knock the DOM/namespace issue off the list; the
Unicode question will have to wait.  (Or be ignored until Python 1.6,
though that's an unappealing prospect.)  The rest of the items on the
TODO list are smaller -- documentation, re-indenting some files, etc.

	Anyway, I'm hoping to do a 0.5.1 release later this week,
which will probably be followed fairly quickly by a 0.5.2 release to
fix any installation glitches.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/
For a moment he hesitates, memories stirring. Another life, another person.
Suntans, lies and half-truths, a wife, a mistress, the clandestine clinic for
cocaine dependency... A package arriving one morning containing a see-through,
a brutually honest see-through body stocking...
    -- The Truth falters, in ENIGMA #2: "The Truth"