Python-URL! - 1999/12/21

by Gordon McMillan - DejaNews: [1]

• People interested in optional static typing in Python should look at the types SIG http://www.python.org/pipermail/types-sig/ which is experiencing a flood of activity, (including unauthorized use of Guido's time-machine).

Meanwhile, a minor flood of announcements in Pythondom:

• Jean-Claude Wippler announces that MetaKit (a fast, lightweight embedded DB library with surprising capabilities) is now Open Source (see DN561017677) http://www.equi4.com/metakit/
• Last week we saw the announcement that DISLIN (a cross platform plotting package) comes with Python bindings; this week Paul Magwene announces a Python OO wrapper library (see DN560482093)
• A bug fix release of Zope (see DN560591351)
• A new release of PyQt/PyKDE (now compiling on Windows NT) from Phil Thompson (see DN562647925)
• A very early (developer only) release of Python Builder (an IDE for the keyboard impared) is now available from Cliff Baeseman (see DN560830466)
• William Annis releases a developer-only snapshot of Mom - a Unix system monitoring tool (primary platform: Solaris) (see DN561060235)
• John Aycock announces an early version of his Decompyle package (reconstruct source from bytecodes) (see DN563144526)

Two juicy tidbits in the "completely different" category:

• Looking for something interesting to do with that huge power-sucking box in the basement? IBM has posted instructions on porting Python 1.4 to OS/390 http://www2.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/python.html (If you have a spare, please ship one to Tim, so he can test floating point conformance <wink>.)
• Those in search of a license model might consider Just van Rossum's unique approach (see DN562607678)
• Don't forget that the early-bird prices for the Python conference expire on January 5th http://www.python.org/workshops/2000-01/