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In the latest couple of months I have been quite silent on Artima;
actually, I have only published `episode #30`_ of my Adventures which
was originally written a long time ago.
The main reason is the Italian summer: with a temperature of 35 degrees
Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) I do not feel very motivated to write and I
spend my weekends on the beach. Also, I spent a couple of weeks of
vacation in Montreal in July (and it was really cool there, in the
literal sense of the world!). Plus, I discovered
`A Song of Ice and Fire`_ by George R. R. Martin. I bought all the
currently published volumes (in the French edition, which means
12 volumes for a total of 5,000+ pages) and I read of all them
in four weeks. I used to read a lot when I was young, but in the
latest ten years or so I have nearly stopped reading fiction: I had already
read all the classics and I could not find recent things worth reading.
But Martin is good.
I have not been completely lazy this summer, and I have found the
time to upload a new release of my `decorator module`_ to PyPI_.
Actually, I had to upload it twice. My first attempt (release 3.1.0)
was accidentally breaking Pylons. The problem was immediately
reported (thanks to Gabriel de Perthuis!) and fixed the day after.
You are encouraged to download release 3.1.1 and to forget about
3.1.0. There are various internal changes but not many user level
changes, except the addition of a new
convenient API to dynamically generate functions (``FunctionMaker.create``).
This is mostly intended for framework authors. For instance in SQLAlchemy_
there is a machinery to instrument classes, which involves adding
properties corresponding to database columns and also redefining
the constructor ``__init__``, by preserving the original signature.
This is done without using the decorator module, but using the same
techniques. If you want to play this kind of games,
``FunctionMaker.create`` will simplify your life a lot. You can find
examples of use in the documentation, so I will not insist on it here.
Instead, I will comment on an user request I had two months ago
from David Laban. He wanted an easy to define decorator factories.
I have thought a lot about that - I had the same request before,
I implemented a solution in version 2.3 and removed it in version 3.0 -
but at the end I have decided *not* to include the feature.
The reasons are that I want to keep the API small and that I do not want
to add even mor magic. Moreover, I am strong believer in the "there must
be only one way" mantra. Finally, it is not difficult to define decorator
factories with the current functionality anyway. So, I have added
to the documentation a recipe (actually a one-liner) to implement
decorator factories on top of the pre-existing functionality.
What about the `Adventures of a Pythonista in Schemeland`_? I am taking
a pause from them for a while, to recover my energy. My blog never
wanted to be Scheme-only. I have updated the table of contents and uploaded
the `full PDF version`_ on my site. This is the good moment to re-read
the Adventures if you have lost the pace and need some time to digest all
the material I have published until now. I must also think about how
to continue the series. A few weeks ago Kent Dybvig released the fourth
edition of `The Scheme Programming Language`_ which is updated to
R6RS Scheme. I have to read to book, since it makes no sense for me
to talk about things which are already covered there.
Anyway, I still have a lot of things to write and soon or later I will
resume the publications (hopefully with a more clement weather).
BTW, there are important news in the Scheme world: just today the
Steering Committee for the next version of Scheme (R7RS) made
a statement about their vision for the Scheme language evolution.
You can find it here_. A few relevant excerpts tell everything:
* *A programming language stays healthy and vibrant by virtue of being
used. When it comes to using Scheme, however, the Scheme community has
rarely missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity*
* *We believe that one primary purpose of a programming language is to program*
* *Scheme has the unhappy distinction of being the world's most
unportable programming language*
* *We believe the diversity of constituencies justifies the design of
two separate but compatible languages, which we will (for now) call
"small" and "large" Scheme*
* *Small Scheme*
- *Constituencies: educators, casual implementors, researchers,
embedded languages, "50-page" purists*
- *Think "IEEE/R5RS brought up to the current date."*
- *~ 90% supermajority to be required for final ratification*
* Large Scheme
- *Constituencies: programmers, implementors*
- *Think "R6RS with a happier outcome."*
- *~ 75% supermajority to be required for final ratification*
All this makes a lot of sense to me. I hope the editors will make a better
job than what was done with the R6RS. Still, I am always skeptical when
it comes to languages designed by committed. See the following worlds from
Marc Feeley when we spoke in person at the `EuroLisp Symposium`_ in Milan:
*I do not believe in languages designed by committee*
[Marc Feeley, appointed member of the R7RS Scheme committee]
.. _episode #30: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=261364
.. _A Song of Ice and Fire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire
.. _decorator module: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/decorator
.. _PyPI: http://pypi.python.org/pypi
.. _Adventures of a Pythonista in Schemeland: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=251474
.. _full PDF version: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/scheme/TheAdventuresofaPythonistainSchemeland.pdf
.. _The Scheme Programming Language: http://www.scheme.com/tspl4/
.. _here: http://www.scheme-reports.org/2009/position-statement.html
.. _EuroLisp Symposium: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=259505
.. _SQLAlchemy: http://www.sqlalchemy.org/
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