c d saunter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Probably not a practical sugestion, but have you considered > ctypes? I know it's proved invaluable to our group at university - we > like to make Python work with so many bits of weird hardware with vendor > supplied libraries etc ...
Yes, I was considering mentioning or covering ctypes as part of an expansion of the "Extending Python *without* Python's C API" section which currently mentions pyfort, f2py, SCXX, CXX, Boost, SWIG, pyrex, weave/blitz, and the use of COM (on Windows only). All of those mentions are on p. 545, meaning that it's a very crowded section, of course;-) [[ and yet it's missing lots of stuff such as sip etc...!-) ]]. I do have a ctypes recipe in the "extending and embedding" chapter of the Cookbook's 2nd edition, and I was really glad to get it because I like ctypes a lot (the Pyrex recipe I had to request specifically from my good friend Peter Cogolo -- requests mailed to the pyrex mailing list having produced no answer whatsoever). So -- ctypes is definitely getting a _mention_, at least... the issue remains of whether we're talking one paragraph, like for all other extending-tools that were already thus mentioned in the 1st edition, or a couple of pages (I can't possibly spend 2-3 pages on each of a dozen extending tools, much as I'd love to!). > Perhaps a more resonable sugestion would be a short section on integration > with native systems, e.g. an intro/overview to (non exhaustive list): > > psyco > scipy.blitz/weave > ctypes > pyrex I'm missing psyco, out of these -- unsure whether it should be in the optimization chapter or in the extending one. But again, mostly, the issue is "just mention -- or _cover_...?". > A detailed look at these is probably outside the scope of Nutshell, but > they all represent intreresting areas. Perhaps the section could end with > some words on PyPy. Speaking as somebody who's participated in more than half of the pypy sprints and hopes for more, I think pypy needs to be mentioned much earlier, together with other "alternate implementations of Python". I do agree that vast coverage is outside the scope that the Nutshell's size lets me aim for. However, mere mention appears to lead to a serious risk of the pointer being entirely missed -- e.g. despite being interested in these issues you appear to be unaware of p. 545 (1st ed). Hmmm -- maybe I need to strike some kind of balance here (so what else is new...;-). Thanks! Alex -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
