pythoncard-users

[Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Kevin A. <al...@se...>]

Rowland and I are both chomping at the bit to start the cleanup and 
major changes for release 0.8. I've requested that SourceForge copy the 
existing PythonCardPrototype tree to a new tree called PythonCard. At 
the earliest, 0.8 won't be ready to go until May.

The main issue that I need feedback on now is the decision to drop 
support for wxPython 2.4.x. In order to support new style classes and 
cleanup the code we really need to move away from wxPython 2.4.x. Thus, 
I don't see keeping 2.4.x compatibility as a realistic option. But this 
move isn't without some pain, so here's what it means.

We are shooting for PythonCard 1.x working with wxPython 2.6, the next 
stable API release of wxWidgets/wxPython. The wxPython 2.5.x API won't 
stabilize completely until 2.6 is released, which is this summer at the 
earliest, and could be toward the end of the year. If and when the 
2.5.x API changes, each version of PythonCard will have to track those 
changes and the minimum version requirement may change until we get to 
wxPython 2.6.x. For example, PythonCard release 0.8 may require 
wxPython 2.5.1.5 as a minimum and release 0.8.1 or 0.9 might require 
wxPython 2.5.2.1, etc.

If you've built a standalone or want to stick with an older version of 
PythonCard for a while you won't be impacted until you want to support 
the latest version.

I won't be using or testing wxPython 2.4.x at all once we start the 
changes, so if you have an objection or issue with this decision that 
you want to raise, the time to do so is now.

A less important decision is whether to require Python 2.3.x or higher. 
Are most Linux releases still using Python 2.2.x? If so, will it be a 
pain to require Python 2.3.x for PythonCard? So far, I can think of few 
reasons why we have to have 2.3, but I no longer run Python 2.2.x 
myself on any of my machines, so unless someone else is going to step 
up and do extensive testing for Python 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, etc. I'm 
inclined to stop supporting it.

ka

Re: [Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Stephen C. W. <go...@co...>]

Kevin Altis wrote:

> The main issue that I need feedback on now is the decision to drop 
> support for wxPython 2.4.x. ...
> 
> We are shooting for PythonCard 1.x working with wxPython 2.6, the next 
> stable API release of wxWidgets/wxPython. The wxPython 2.5.x API won't 
> stabilize completely until 2.6 is released [so the] 2.5.x 
> ... version[s] of PythonCard will have to track those changes 
> ... until we get to wxPython 
> 2.6.x. ...

That makes sense to me.  (We don't have a released PythonCard app
yet, but that strategy would definitely make me more disposed to
move some things we have developed in wxPython to PythonCard.
At any rate, we will wait to begin using PythonCard until it starts
tracking wxPython 2.5.x or later.  :)

> A less important decision is whether to require Python 2.3.x or higher. 
> .... I'm inclined to
> stop supporting it.

Not a problem for us -- we moved all our apps to 2.3.x almost immediately.

Cheers,
Steve

Re: [Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Stephen C. W. <go...@co...>]

Kevin Altis wrote:
> Can you elaborate on the kinds of things you would port from wxPython to 
> PythonCard? I'm curious since in general someone that is already 
> comfortable with the wxPython APIs wouldn't see much value in PythonCard 
> and its simplified and more limited approach.

Good observation.  We probably wouldn't port *everything* to
PythonCard, but some of the simpler things that could serve
as extensible template-like modules for "enterprise developers"
who may not be familiar with wxPython (more likely VB, Cold Fusion,
etc.) to customize and/or extend.

Some of our wxPython app probably *would* be difficult to
implement in PythonCard, so we'll most likely continue to have
a "heavy" GUI that is all wxPython, with possibly some
customizability for programmers who are comfy with
wxPython.

> Also, I would be 
> interested to hear the types of things you want to build or your 
> expected user base for PythonCard since that could help shape the 
> changes as we move to 1.0 status.

They would probably be simple things with tabular widgets
and relatively simple event-driven "live" status displays.

One thing I'm thinking of is a real-time collaborative
spreadsheet-like thingy that uses Twisted's Perspective Broker.
I don't know how familiar you are with Twisted, but there is a cool
example of that concept.  It uses wxPython but I think it could
easily be ported to PythonCard as the GUI features are *really*
simple.  The example was developed by Axel Busch when he was
learning Twisted.  I could send it to the list if you are
interested -- if we ported it to PythonCard, I think it would
make a killer example of using PythonCard with Twisted.

> I'm emailing you privately in case you 
> don't want to make the info public on the list.

Thanks -- very considerate!  But it's no problem.  All our
stuff is destined to be OS, even though at this point we're
still in "cathedral mode".  ;)

Cheers,
Steve

Re: [Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Kevin A. <al...@se...>]

On Apr 8, 2004, at 3:52 PM, Stephen C. Waterbury wrote:

> One thing I'm thinking of is a real-time collaborative
> spreadsheet-like thingy that uses Twisted's Perspective Broker.
> I don't know how familiar you are with Twisted, but there is a cool
> example of that concept.  It uses wxPython but I think it could
> easily be ported to PythonCard as the GUI features are *really*
> simple.  The example was developed by Axel Busch when he was
> learning Twisted.  I could send it to the list if you are
> interested -- if we ported it to PythonCard, I think it would
> make a killer example of using PythonCard with Twisted.
>
Yes please, we need to have a Twisted sample and I keep putting off 
figuring out what the initialization steps are, whether you have to 
have twisted or wxPython as the primary thread, etc. If I see the basic 
strategy I'm sure we could do a number of samples.

ka

Re: [Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Kenneth P. <pro...@sk...>]

On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 01:22:03PM -0700, Kevin Altis wrote:
> We are shooting for PythonCard 1.x working with wxPython 2.6, the next 
> stable API release of wxWidgets/wxPython. The wxPython 2.5.x API won't 
> stabilize completely until 2.6 is released, which is this summer at the 
> earliest, and could be toward the end of the year. If and when the 
> 2.5.x API changes, each version of PythonCard will have to track those 
> changes and the minimum version requirement may change until we get to 
> wxPython 2.6.x. For example, PythonCard release 0.8 may require 
> wxPython 2.5.1.5 as a minimum and release 0.8.1 or 0.9 might require 
> wxPython 2.5.2.1, etc.

For Debian, I may have a hard time tracking individual releases of
wxPython, since I don't maintain that package.  We'll have to see.

For the time being, the wxPython 2.5 packages are only in Debian's
'experimental' distribution.  This is not a mainline distribution, i.e.
packages from 'experimental' do not get automatically propogated to
'testing'.

This means that whenever you start requiring 2.5, I'll need to release
my PythonCard packages to the 'experimental' distribution instead of
'unstable', until 2.5 itself moves into 'unstable'.  

> A less important decision is whether to require Python 2.3.x or higher. 

Python 2.3 is the standard Python in Debian 'sarge', which will be the
next stable release.   I do not (and will not) support any backports to
earlier Debian releases, so from my perspective, it would be OK to
require Python 2.3.

KEN

-- 
Kenneth J. Pronovici <pro...@sk...>
Personal Homepage: http://www.skyjammer.com/~pronovic/
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little 
 temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." 
      - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 

Re: [Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Andy T. <an...@ha...>]

Kevin Altis wrote:
> Rowland and I are both chomping at the bit to start the cleanup and 
> major changes for release 0.8. I've requested that SourceForge copy the 
> existing PythonCardPrototype tree to a new tree called PythonCard. At 
> the earliest, 0.8 won't be ready to go until May.
> 
> The main issue that I need feedback on now is the decision to drop 
> support for wxPython 2.4.x. In order to support new style classes and 
> cleanup the code we really need to move away from wxPython 2.4.x. Thus, 
> I don't see keeping 2.4.x compatibility as a realistic option. But this 
> move isn't without some pain, so here's what it means.
> 
> We are shooting for PythonCard 1.x working with wxPython 2.6, the next 
> stable API release of wxWidgets/wxPython. The wxPython 2.5.x API won't 
> stabilize completely until 2.6 is released, which is this summer at the 
> earliest, and could be toward the end of the year. If and when the 2.5.x 
> API changes, each version of PythonCard will have to track those changes 
> and the minimum version requirement may change until we get to wxPython 
> 2.6.x. For example, PythonCard release 0.8 may require wxPython 2.5.1.5 
> as a minimum and release 0.8.1 or 0.9 might require wxPython 2.5.2.1, etc.
> 
> If you've built a standalone or want to stick with an older version of 
> PythonCard for a while you won't be impacted until you want to support 
> the latest version.
> 
> I won't be using or testing wxPython 2.4.x at all once we start the 
> changes, so if you have an objection or issue with this decision that 
> you want to raise, the time to do so is now.
> 
> A less important decision is whether to require Python 2.3.x or higher. 
> Are most Linux releases still using Python 2.2.x? If so, will it be a 
> pain to require Python 2.3.x for PythonCard? So far, I can think of few 
> reasons why we have to have 2.3, but I no longer run Python 2.2.x myself 
> on any of my machines, so unless someone else is going to step up and do 
> extensive testing for Python 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, etc. I'm inclined to 
> stop supporting it.
> 
> ka
> 

My vote is for Python 2.3 as it is standard on my operating systems 
(Debian and OSX).

wxPython 2.5 hasn't made it into Debian yet, but I expect it will be 
available soon (at least in unstable). So lets go for that as well.

Regards,
Andy
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 From the desk of Andrew J Todd esq - http://www.halfcooked.com/

Re: [Pythoncard-users] release 0.8 and beyond minimum requirement issues

[Kevin A. <al...@se...>]

So far the opinion is jump to Python 2.3 and wxPython 2.5 - 2.6. I'll 
give people until Monday morning for any additional input against 
making the move, then Rowland and I are going to start making changes 
for Python 2.3 and wxPython 2.5.1.5.

ka