[Metakit] Re : Tom Cloyd/Wiki Suggestion
I think using a Wiki is a great idea in addition to the current (low volume, be nice to keep it that way) mailing list They both have good/bad points. My only concern about a Wiki is access and how do you stop every man and his dog from trashing it - ideally you'd synch the allowed users with the names from the mailing list, but thats likely more than you want to get into ... cheers, Garth Garth Lancaster Production Support Manager IT Services : Group Operations Medical Benefits Fund of Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph : +61 2 9323 9534 Fax : +61 2 9323 9054 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/13/05 8:00 PM Send Metakit mailing list submissions to metakit@equi4.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.equi4.com/mailman/listinfo/metakit or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Metakit digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: ongoing problem ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 2. Re: ongoing problem (Tom Cloyd) -- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 06:32:05 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Metakit] ongoing problem To: MetaKit Mailing List metakit@equi4.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Although I have not had similar problems with installing Metakit for Python on Windows, I have to agree and sympathize with Tom Cloyd's remarks here. The problem -- from the point of view of habitual Python users and those who understand how Python finds imported files and DLLs -- is that installation of Metakit is almost too simple. So it doesn't require any instructions: you know where to put this stuff, don't you? You know all about the DLLs directory of a Python installation and all about the site-packages directory. You even know what a DLL *is* (who doesen't?). So you just plop the couple of files in the obvious places and off you go. Except that for people who are perhaps new to using Python or who have never used a Python package that didn't come with an installer, and who maybe don't even know what a DLL is (and what its relation to a .so file is), this can be bewildering. Some additional and very explicit instructions could be very helpful. Things like: 1. Find your Python installation directory (and say what installation driectory means). 2. Find the DLL subdirectory of this. Put Mk4py.dll in that directory. 3. Find the Lib/site-packages subdirectory of the installation directory. Put metakit.py there. 4. You're done. Something like this could help people in Tom's position. -- Gary H. Merrill, Principal Scientist Analysis Applications, Research, and Technologies GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development Research Triangle Park, NC 919.483.8456 -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.equi4.com/pipermail/metakit/attachments/20050812/f4d4133b/attachment-0001.htm -- Message: 2 Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:28:23 -0700 From: Tom Cloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Metakit] ongoing problem To: MetaKit Mailing List metakit@equi4.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=utf-8 Gary and List, Gosh darn...thanks for 'getting it'. A lovely, thoughtful response. I utterly love computers, but I'm a psychotherapist and artist, and don't have all the time in the world to learn what I need to know to work at the level many of you do. I find myself frequently struggling with documentation or lack of it, in all directions. I have written extensive documentation for my own programs and web sites, and some for others, and I don't minimize the task at all. I understand why it's always a problem, and the situation won't improve if we don't ask for, and work for, improvement, eh? All of my remarks, howsoever tinged with frustration they might have been, were intended to be constructive, I also want to assure you. When I see some great new tool, I always want there to be an 8-lane freeway to its door. There rarely is. I just spent 4 frustrating days trying to solve an encoding problem in Python. The Python documentation is really great, and I was delighted by it. But it gave me tons of options and no direction. Two different discussion lists full of experts had no ideas about my problem. And this was for a program that has worked fine for weeks. I actually get work done with it, and needed to get to going NOW, after it stopped working for reasons I still don't grasp. I finally stumbled across a suggestion of a solution in an odd place, and got the pig to fly, entirely on my own. The problem? No where could I find documentation of the fact that string.maketrans()
Re: [Metakit] Re : Tom Cloyd/Wiki Suggestion
Actually, it wouldn't be all that difficult both set this up and to control access. I could do it in a couple of minutes, right now. I first want to know if Jean-Claude would prefer to do it himself, perhaps as an extension of his web site, or does it make more sense for us users to do this ourselves. Since I have access to a dedicated Zope server, where I already have 4 Plone sites flying, I could easily set up another, dedicated to this task. I would use the excellent ZWiki wiki software, for which I myself have already written a lot of documentation (and Simon, the programmer also has plenty on his excellent site). Access could be controlled easily in several ways. My first guess on how to do it would be to take manual control of access myself. People wanting in to the wiki would need only to email me with proof of their enrollment on the MetaKit mailing list (a copy of a recent post would do the trick). So...I'd love more reaction to these thoughts. It'd be nice to get it right. more or less, from the beginning. Tom C. On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 05:29:13 -0700, Garth Lancaster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think using a Wiki is a great idea in addition to the current (low volume, be nice to keep it that way) mailing list They both have good/bad points. My only concern about a Wiki is access and how do you stop every man and his dog from trashing it - ideally you'd synch the allowed users with the names from the mailing list, but thats likely more than you want to get into ... cheers, Garth Garth Lancaster Production Support Manager IT Services : Group Operations Medical Benefits Fund of Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph : +61 2 9323 9534 Fax : +61 2 9323 9054 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/13/05 8:00 PM Send Metakit mailing list submissions to metakit@equi4.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.equi4.com/mailman/listinfo/metakit or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Metakit digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: ongoing problem ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 2. Re: ongoing problem (Tom Cloyd) -- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 06:32:05 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Metakit] ongoing problem To: MetaKit Mailing List metakit@equi4.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Although I have not had similar problems with installing Metakit for Python on Windows, I have to agree and sympathize with Tom Cloyd's remarks here. The problem -- from the point of view of habitual Python users and those who understand how Python finds imported files and DLLs -- is that installation of Metakit is almost too simple. So it doesn't require any instructions: you know where to put this stuff, don't you? You know all about the DLLs directory of a Python installation and all about the site-packages directory. You even know what a DLL *is* (who doesen't?). So you just plop the couple of files in the obvious places and off you go. Except that for people who are perhaps new to using Python or who have never used a Python package that didn't come with an installer, and who maybe don't even know what a DLL is (and what its relation to a .so file is), this can be bewildering. Some additional and very explicit instructions could be very helpful. Things like: 1. Find your Python installation directory (and say what installation driectory means). 2. Find the DLL subdirectory of this. Put Mk4py.dll in that directory. 3. Find the Lib/site-packages subdirectory of the installation directory. Put metakit.py there. 4. You're done. Something like this could help people in Tom's position. -- Gary H. Merrill, Principal Scientist Analysis Applications, Research, and Technologies GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development Research Triangle Park, NC 919.483.8456 -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.equi4.com/pipermail/metakit/attachments/20050812/f4d4133b/attachment-0001.htm -- Message: 2 Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:28:23 -0700 From: Tom Cloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Metakit] ongoing problem To: MetaKit Mailing List metakit@equi4.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=utf-8 Gary and List, Gosh darn...thanks for 'getting it'. A lovely, thoughtful response. I utterly love computers, but I'm a psychotherapist and artist, and don't have all the time in the world to learn what I need to know to work at the level many of you do. I find myself frequently struggling with documentation or lack of it, in all directions. I have written extensive
