pyobjc-dev — CVS commit notices go here

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Using web software databases to reach the masses

[Ronald_Oussoren <ous...@co...>]

On Wed, 7 May 2003 09:24:04 +0200, Dinu Gherman wrote
> Dinu Gherman:
> 
> > As a start I'd suggest these two for PyObjC:
> >
> >   http://www.versiontracker.com
> >   http://www.macupdate.com
> 
> In fact, Python and MacPython were already there:
> 
>    http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=python
>     
> http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/ 
> new_search.m?productDB=mac&mode=Quick&OS_Filter=MacOSX&search=python
> 
> But VersionTracker.com still says PyObjC 0.8 is the newest (311
> downloads, BTW), while MacUpdate.com doesn't know about it...
> 
> Is it known who is actually maintaining this information? Bill, you
> are listed with CodeFab for PyObjC on VersionTracker... I suggest
> to write the list of such sites down somewhere in CVS in some "nor-
> malised" fashion.

I agree that adding us to more of these sites is usefull. I'll try to add us
to macupdate.com, freshmeat.net and the python package index at python.org.

Ronald

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] CVS build failing

[Ronald_Oussoren <ous...@ci...>]

On Wed, 7 May 2003 13:13:10 +0200, Jack Jansen wrote
> Folks,
> build from CVS is failing for me, with the dreaded
> 
> ld: build/libffi/lib/libffi.a(darwin_closure.o) has local relocation 
> entries in non-writable section (__TEXT,__text)
> 
> when linking objc/_objc.so. Is anyone else seeing this? I have the 
> March 8 snapshot of libffi, and the last build I tried (a couple of 
> weeks ago) worked fine...

Your using an older snapshot of libffi. The snapshot that is currently on SF
should work.

Ronald

[Pyobjc-dev] CVS build failing

[Jack J. <Jac...@cw...>]

Folks,
build from CVS is failing for me, with the dreaded

ld: build/libffi/lib/libffi.a(darwin_closure.o) has local relocation 
entries in non-writable section (__TEXT,__text)

when linking objc/_objc.so. Is anyone else seeing this? I have the 
March 8 snapshot of libffi, and the last build I tried (a couple of 
weeks ago) worked fine...
--
Jack Jansen, <Jac...@cw...>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] re: My second roadblock - lessons learned

[Jack J. <Jac...@cw...>]

First of all: thanks to Gary and Zachary for following the tutorial to 
the letter and reporting bugs like these!

Second, I think there's an important lesson in here: as the tutorial is 
going to be the very first thing newcomers will try it must be 
absolutely bug-free. In other words, before the next release we should 
do a code freeze and at that point someone should follow the tutorial 
(and follow it to the letter) to see that it still makes sense.

I think it might be a good idea to create a document 
"distribution-build.txt" or something like that in which we record the 
steps that need to be taken when creating a new distribution. This 
could include stuff like testing the tutorial, but also the 
incantations needed to create the installers, addresses of mailing 
lists and websites where we want to post announcements, etc. I have 
such a document for MacPython distributions (in 
Mac/Distributions/readme.txt), and I find that with every distribution 
I do there's one of the steps that cause the "oh! good that I wrote 
this down, otherwise I would have forgotten" sensation.
--
Jack Jansen, <Jac...@cw...>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Re: OK, I'm already stymied.

[Jack J. <Jac...@cw...>]

On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 16:05 Europe/Amsterdam, Just van Rossum 
wrote:

> Jack Jansen wrote:
>
>> When I wrote the tutorial you still needed to do "import PyObjC".
>> Then the PyObjC package finally disappeared, to make the names more
>> compatible with Apple documentation (something that was on the todo
>> list for a long time). Then nobody remembered to fix the tutorial:-(
>
> Hm, there's the objc module, which used to be called pyobjc, but that
> happened long before I first worked with PyObjC and surely predates 
> your
> tutorial. There's a new module called PyObjCTools, but in recent times
> there has been no module called PyObjC, so I have my doubts "import
> PyObjC" ever worked during the existence of the tutorial...

... Hmm... I'm pretty sure that I started with a clean environment when 
I wrote the tutorial, but maybe I goofed up somehow?
--
Jack Jansen, <Jac...@cw...>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Using web software databases to reach the masses

[Dinu G. <gh...@da...>]

Dinu Gherman:

> As a start I'd suggest these two for PyObjC:
>
>   http://www.versiontracker.com
>   http://www.macupdate.com

In fact, Python and MacPython were already there:

   http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=python
    
http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/ 
new_search.m?productDB=mac&mode=Quick&OS_Filter=MacOSX&search=python

But VersionTracker.com still says PyObjC 0.8 is the newest (311
downloads, BTW), while MacUpdate.com doesn't know about it...

Is it known who is actually maintaining this information? Bill, you
are listed with CodeFab for PyObjC on VersionTracker... I suggest
to write the list of such sites down somewhere in CVS in some "nor-
malised" fashion.

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"Keep good relations with the Grecians."
(George W. Bush, 12 Jun. 1999)

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Calling methods on nil

[Marcel W. <ma...@me...>]

>

> Of course, there is no formal definition of "pythonic", there there is
> the list from "import this", the most well known (as well as abused) 
> one
> is "Explicit is better than implicit".

Not necessarily.  For example, the polymorphism you get with OO is 
*implicit*.  You didn't say which exact method you wanted, you just 
sent the message and let the system decide which specific 
implementation to use.  And yes, there are still a number of people who 
consider this 'evil'.

>  Also appripriate is
>
>   In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.

Who is guessing?

> as well as
>
>   Errors should never pass silently.

If they are actually errors in the first place...

Marcel

-- 
Marcel Weiher				Metaobject Software Technologies
ma...@me...		www.metaobject.com
Metaprogramming for the Graphic Arts.   HOM, IDEAs, MetaAd etc.

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] re: My second roadblock

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Zachery Bir wrote:

> > Even tho this was my error, to make sure other people don't fall
> > into the same silliness, you might want to change the tutorial to
> > say: "Work through Defining the Classes of Currency Converter,
> > Connecting ConverterController to the Interface, and stop at 
> > Implementing the Classes of Currency Converter".
> 
> +1

Done, thanks.

Just

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] re: My second roadblock

[Zachery B. <zb...@ur...>]

On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 04:14 PM, Gary Robinson wrote:

>> Yes, but if you follow Apple's tutorial up to the the step listed in
>> the tutorial, you don't have the two instances ConverterController and
>> Converter... So there's a missing step somewhere.
>
> Wait, I figured it out. My silliness.
>
> The PyObjC tutorial says stop when you get to "Implementing the 
> Classes of
> Currency Converter" in the Apple tuturial.
>
> However, I stopped when I got to "Defining the Classes of Currency
> Converter" which is very different!
>
> Seems like Zac did the same thing??

d'oh.

> Even tho this was my error, to make sure other people don't fall into 
> the
> same silliness, you might want to change the tutorial to say: "Work 
> through
> Defining the Classes of Currency Converter, Connecting 
> ConverterController
> to the Interface, and stop at  Implementing the Classes of Currency
> Converter".

+1

Zac

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] re: My second roadblock

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Gary Robinson wrote:

> HOWEVER, I still have a problem. The CurrencyConverter.py I get after
> doing all that is identical to step4-CurrencyConverter.py, except the
> latter contains 
> 
>     from Foundation import NSObject, NSObject
> 
> as the first line, and mine doesn't have any line importing NSObject.
> 
> Of course I can manually edit the file to add the import, but does
> anybody have any idea why it wasn't put there automatically?

Because it shouldn't be needed, the file in the tutorial was generated
with an earlier version of NibClassBuilder.py, and someone forgot to
update the tutorial (me). So: the code should be just fine...

Just

[Pyobjc-dev] re: My second roadblock

[Gary R. <gro...@tr...>]

> Yes, but if you follow Apple's tutorial up to the the step listed in
> the tutorial, you don't have the two instances ConverterController and
> Converter... So there's a missing step somewhere.

Wait, I figured it out. My silliness.

The PyObjC tutorial says stop when you get to "Implementing the Classes of
Currency Converter" in the Apple tuturial.

However, I stopped when I got to "Defining the Classes of Currency
Converter" which is very different!

Seems like Zac did the same thing??


Even tho this was my error, to make sure other people don't fall into the
same silliness, you might want to change the tutorial to say: "Work through
Defining the Classes of Currency Converter, Connecting ConverterController
to the Interface, and stop at  Implementing the Classes of Currency
Converter".

HOWEVER, I still have a problem. The CurrencyConverter.py I get after doing
all that is identical to step4-CurrencyConverter.py, except the latter
contains 

    from Foundation import NSObject, NSObject

as the first line, and mine doesn't have any line importing NSObject.

Of course I can manually edit the file to add the import, but does anybody
have any idea why it wasn't put there automatically?



--Gary

-- 
[http://ThisURLEnablesEmailToGetThroughOverzealousSpamFilters.org]

Gary Robinson
CEO
Transpose, LLC
gro...@tr...
207-942-3463
http://www.transpose.com
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] My second roadblock

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Zachery Bir wrote:

> Yes, but if you follow Apple's tutorial up to the the step listed in 
> the tutorial, you don't have the two instances ConverterController and 
> Converter... So there's a missing step somewhere.

Ha, that would be great, since step 5 is superfluous and needs to be
removed (it was left over from an earlier version), and renumbering the
later items will be a pain ;-)

Just

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] My second roadblock

[Zachery B. <zb...@ur...>]

On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 01:53 PM, Just van Rossum wrote:

> Gary Robinson wrote:
>
>> This step seemed to execute correctly, but my CurrencyConverter.py
>> looks very different from step4-CurrencyConverter.py. Here is what it
>> looks like:
>>
>>> from PyObjCTools import NibClassBuilder, AppHelper
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> if __name__ == "__main__":
>>>   AppHelper.runEventLoop()
>>
>> That's the entire contents of the file. Lots of stuff seems to be
>> missing.
>
> The tutorial contains step3-MainMenu.nib, that one should give the 
> right
> output when you run it through nibclassbuilder.

Yes, but if you follow Apple's tutorial up to the the step listed in 
the tutorial, you don't have the two instances ConverterController and 
Converter... So there's a missing step somewhere.

Zac

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] My second roadblock

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Gary Robinson wrote:

> This step seemed to execute correctly, but my CurrencyConverter.py
> looks very different from step4-CurrencyConverter.py. Here is what it
> looks like:
> 
> > from PyObjCTools import NibClassBuilder, AppHelper
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > if __name__ == "__main__":
> >   AppHelper.runEventLoop()
> 
> That's the entire contents of the file. Lots of stuff seems to be
> missing.

The tutorial contains step3-MainMenu.nib, that one should give the right
output when you run it through nibclassbuilder.

(A nib "file" is indeed directory, but a special one called a package.
Most of the OS hides the fact that it's really a directory, so in
general it's ok to call it a file.)

Just

[Pyobjc-dev] Re: Second roadblock -- more

[Michael H. <mw...@py...>]

Gary Robinson <gro...@tr...> writes:

> I don't know whether it means anything that tutorial.html refers to
> MainMenu.nib as a "file" when in fact it is a directory with the following
> contents:
>
> % ls -l MainMenu.nib
> total 32
> -rw-r--r--  1 garyrob  staff   110 May  6 12:09 classes.nib
> -rw-r--r--  1 garyrob  staff   589 May  6 12:09 info.nib
> -rw-r--r--  1 garyrob  staff  6411 May  6 12:09 objects.nib
>
>
> Maybe I should be referring to one of the files in MainMenu.nib, rather than
> to MainMenu.nib itself???

Nope.  Can't be more helpful than that, I'm afraid :-/

classes.nib looks a little small.

Do things go wrong when you run NibClassBuilder.py on the .nib in the
tutorial folder?

Cheers,
M.

-- 
  I wouldn't trust the Anglo-Saxons for much anything else.  Given
  they way English is spelled, who could trust them on _anything_ that
  had to do with writing things down, anyway?
                                        -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp

[Pyobjc-dev] Second roadblock -- more

[Gary R. <gro...@tr...>]

I don't know whether it means anything that tutorial.html refers to
MainMenu.nib as a "file" when in fact it is a directory with the following
contents:

% ls -l MainMenu.nib
total 32
-rw-r--r--  1 garyrob  staff   110 May  6 12:09 classes.nib
-rw-r--r--  1 garyrob  staff   589 May  6 12:09 info.nib
-rw-r--r--  1 garyrob  staff  6411 May  6 12:09 objects.nib


Maybe I should be referring to one of the files in MainMenu.nib, rather than
to MainMenu.nib itself???

 


--Gary

-- 
[http://ThisURLEnablesEmailToGetThroughOverzealousSpamFilters.org]

Gary Robinson
CEO
Transpose, LLC
gro...@tr...
207-942-3463
http://www.transpose.com
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Calling methods on nil

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Dinu Gherman wrote:

> Well, let's not try to impose anybody's definition of what "pythonic"
> means to any group of people, like future Pythonistas coming from the
> Cocoa camp.
> 
> In fact, I still haven't found a good definition of what it means to
> be "pythonic"... which is maybe good, because many great things lack
> a good, satisfactory definition.

Of course, there is no formal definition of "pythonic", there there is
the list from "import this", the most well known (as well as abused) one
is "Explicit is better than implicit". Also appripriate is

  In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.

as well as

  Errors should never pass silently.

> Saying something is pythonic, because it was in Python 0.x is probably
> not enough as we can see with Booleans, say, which were doomed to be
> evil until Python 2.2, or so.

Sending messages to nil makes little sense in Python, as calling a
method is always a two-step procedure: 1) get the bound method, 2) call
the bound method. The fact that to emulate sending arbitrary messages to
nil you need to create dummy bound method objects should (but apparently
doesn't, to you ;-) clearly demonstrate that this does not fit the way
Python _works_. IMO it has little to do with what is perceived to be
Pythonic.

> Wonderful-topic-for-a-discussion-fueled-by-Belgian-beer-;-)'ly,

Sure thing ;-)

Just

[Pyobjc-dev] My second roadblock

[Gary R. <gro...@tr...>]

I'm working through tutorial.html.

I've gone through the Cocoa tutorial steps, and have a nib file that looks
like the appropriate CurrencyConverter application, and all the text fields
behave properly, etc.

At this point my MainMenu.nib directoty looks like step3-MainMenu.nib, as
the tutorial says it shoud.

The next step in the tutorial says:

>  4. Create the skeleton Python script by running NibClassBuilder as a tool.
> When invoked as a main program from the command line NibClassBuilder will
> parse the NIB file and create a skeleton module for you. Invoke it as follows
> (from the src directory):
> 
> $ python $PYLIB/site-packages/PyObjC/PyObjCTools/NibClassBuilder.py \
>       MainMenu.nib > CurrencyConverter.py
> 
>     The result of this can be seen in step4-CurrencyConverter.py.

This step seemed to execute correctly, but my CurrencyConverter.py looks
very different from step4-CurrencyConverter.py. Here is what it looks like:

> from PyObjCTools import NibClassBuilder, AppHelper
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> if __name__ == "__main__":
>   AppHelper.runEventLoop()

That's the entire contents of the file. Lots of stuff seems to be missing.

I have no idea why. As far as I can tell, I am doing the tutorial
instructions exactly as described, and CurrencyConverter.py was in fact
generated, but it apparently isn't correct.

Any ideas?

--Gary

-- 
[http://ThisURLEnablesEmailToGetThroughOverzealousSpamFilters.org]

Gary Robinson
CEO
Transpose, LLC
gro...@tr...
207-942-3463
http://www.transpose.com
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Calling methods on nil

[Dinu G. <gh...@da...>]

Just van Rossum:

> -1. It may be the ObjC way, but it's not the Python way. Remember =
we're
> using Python to use Cocoa and not to write ObjC with a nicer syntax...

Well, let's not try to impose anybody's definition of what "pythonic"
means to any group of people, like future Pythonistas coming from the
Cocoa camp.

In fact, I still haven't found a good definition of what it means to
be "pythonic"... which is maybe good, because many great things lack
a good, satisfactory definition.

Saying something is pythonic, because it was in Python 0.x is probably
not enough as we can see with Booleans, say, which were doomed to be
evil until Python 2.2, or so.

Wonderful-topic-for-a-discussion-fueled-by-Belgian-beer-;-)'ly,

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"All you have to do is tell [the people] they are being attacked,
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
(Hermann=A0Goering, President of the Reichstag, 1932-45)

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Calling methods on nil

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Dinu Gherman wrote:

> Ok, I'm looking deeper into the documentation.... so here we go!
> Item 2 in pyobjc/Doc/warts.html currently says:
> 
>    In objective-C it is valid to call methods on nil, these calls
>    will be ignored. The nil 'object' is mapped to None and None
>    will not ignore method calls, but will most likely raise an
>    AttributeError. You'll have to remember this when translating
>    from Objective-C to python.
> 
> This might lead to people who are trying to convert Cocoa code to
> Python to change the application logic. I remember I wrote a Null
> class that would behave as much as a "black whole" as possible.
> It's in the O'Reilly Python Cookbook and available online here:
> 
>    http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/68205
> 
> This might benefit from some more detailed inspection using ver-
> sion 2.3 of Python, which I haven't done, yet.
> 
> I might be possible to replace the current None (as currently con-
> verted from nil) with a singleton Null instance, possibly as an
> option only, if the code rewriting ever becomes more of a real
> issue... I know that it can be very convenient in some cases if
> "nothing" happens in a well-defined way! ;-)

-1. It may be the ObjC way, but it's not the Python way. Remember we're
using Python to use Cocoa and not to write ObjC with a nicer syntax...

Just

[Pyobjc-dev] Calling methods on nil

[Dinu G. <gh...@da...>]

Ok, I'm looking deeper into the documentation.... so here we go!
Item 2 in pyobjc/Doc/warts.html currently says:

   In objective-C it is valid to call methods on nil, these calls
   will be ignored. The nil 'object' is mapped to None and None
   will not ignore method calls, but will most likely raise an
   AttributeError. You'll have to remember this when translating
   from Objective-C to python.

This might lead to people who are trying to convert Cocoa code to
Python to change the application logic. I remember I wrote a Null
class that would behave as much as a "black whole" as possible.
It's in the O'Reilly Python Cookbook and available online here:

   http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/68205

This might benefit from some more detailed inspection using ver-
sion 2.3 of Python, which I haven't done, yet.

I might be possible to replace the current None (as currently con-
verted from nil) with a singleton Null instance, possibly as an
option only, if the code rewriting ever becomes more of a real
issue... I know that it can be very convenient in some cases if
"nothing" happens in a well-defined way! ;-)

Regards,

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"Les gens se divisent en deux cat=E9gories=A0: les uns cherchent et
ne trouvent pas, les autres trouvent et ne sont pas contents."
(Mihail Eminescu)=

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Re: OK, I'm already stymied.

[Just v. R. <ju...@le...>]

Jack Jansen wrote:

> When I wrote the tutorial you still needed to do "import PyObjC".
> Then the PyObjC package finally disappeared, to make the names more
> compatible with Apple documentation (something that was on the todo
> list for a long time). Then nobody remembered to fix the tutorial:-(

Hm, there's the objc module, which used to be called pyobjc, but that
happened long before I first worked with PyObjC and surely predates your
tutorial. There's a new module called PyObjCTools, but in recent times
there has been no module called PyObjC, so I have my doubts "import
PyObjC" ever worked during the existence of the tutorial...

Just

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Re: OK, I'm already stymied.

[Jack J. <Jac...@cw...>]

On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 14:43 Europe/Amsterdam, Michael Hudson 
wrote:
>>> But I suggest updating the Tutorial
>>> (Documentation/PyObjC/tutorial/tutorial.html) so that it urges the
>>> user to
>>> "import Foundation" rather than "import PyObjC" since the latter
>>> won't work.
>>
>> I agree. Caught me at first, as well.
>
> OK, another question: why is it done like this?

When I wrote the tutorial you still needed to do "import PyObjC". Then 
the PyObjC
package finally disappeared, to make the names more compatible with 
Apple documentation (something that was on the todo list for a long 
time). Then nobody remembered to fix the tutorial:-(
--
Jack Jansen, <Jac...@cw...>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman

Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Re: OK, I'm already stymied.

[Dinu G. <gh...@da...>]

Michael Hudson:

> OK, another question: why is it done like this?

Excellent question! In fact, I was wondering why the many Mac modules
on http://www.python.org/doc/current/modindex.html don't live under
one common shelter, say a package named "mac", too? Wouldn't that
help fighting "namespace pollution" disease? Or is it "too late"?

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values
or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized vio-
lence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
(Samuel P. Huntington)

[Pyobjc-dev] Using web software databases to reach the masses

[Dinu G. <gh...@da...>]

Hi, I'd like the PyObjC admins to consider the idea and open a page
on some of the increasingly popular web databases describing soft-
ware for people searching it. One small benefit is that usually they
provide some download counters as well.

As a start I'd suggest these two for PyObjC:

   http://www.versiontracker.com
   http://www.macupdate.com

I'm using them a lot myself and I believe many thousends of users
do so as well on a daily basis. Have a try with this one if you
like: ;-)

   http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11686

Regards,

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but
because people refuse to see it." (James Michener)