from __future__ import * 24.2.2004

MarchPython

From stackless.com:

24-Feb-04: Stackless Sprint in Berlin

A sprint on Stackless Python will be done In Berlin, March 10-14. We are planning to work on auto-scheduling, more softswitching support, documentation, examples, Zope, refactoring Stackless into configurable layers, and more.

I'll be flying out to participate, and hopefully also to meet up with the MacPython crew in Amsterdam for a few days.. followed immediately by a week of PyCon.

Open a new terminal right here

Terminal.app and Vim are essentially my IDE, for better or for worse, and I often find myself starting up a new terminal window in the current directory. Here's the script I use (which could easily be a tcsh alias instead, but whatever):

tfork:

#!/bin/sh
set PWD=`pwd`
osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal.app\" to do script \"cd \" & quoted form of \"$PWD\""

Usage:

[crack:~/bin] bob% tfork
(a new window at ~/bin pops up in front)

Trac

Trac is a "minimal" Subversion Frontend/Wiki/Issue Tracker/Task Manager/etc. written in Python that revolves around a Subversion repository and a SQLite database. I've taken a quick glance (at the website and source code), and here are my thoughts:

Pros:

• Verison Control!

• Far, far, far less ugly than almost all of the others

• It's not sitting on top of some monster like Zope/Plone/etc.

Cons:

• The source code mixes tabs and spaces (what the hell are they thinking)?

• Lots of inline SQL code, no abstraction on top of SQLite.

• It is based on CGIs, with no fcgi/asyncore/Twisted/etc integration that I can see, so it's not likely to scale and may have database locking issues (either corruption, or not scaling because the database is locked per-process).

• The Wiki engine is based on MoinMoin syntax not reStructuredText, and it has no hooks to docutils.

• When they say minimal, they were probably comparing themselves with Plone. It certainly doesn't sound minimal from the description!

That said, I think something like this is sorely needed, but it doesn't sound appealing enough just yet to compell me to dump roundup, MoinMoin, viewsvn, etc.