A lot of fixes went in under the hood include fixes to the Windows build environment.  On the Introspection side we are getting closer to parity with PyGtk interfaces with notes from people who have successfully ported their plugins and apps.    I would like to thank the numerous bug and patch filers including the GEdit team for letting us know what they need for us to support them.  Keep those bugs coming and hop on irc to pester us until we fix your issue.  Some higlights include:

• better handling of virtual methods
• fixed gobject inheritance model
• you can now call dir on dynamic modules to see what member exist
• the Tree* API is much nicer, exporting a lot of the convenience APIs that exist in PyGtk
• cairo_rectangle_int_t is supported as a foreign type if pycairo exports it (patch at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31111)
• some Python 3 fixes so we can compile under Python 3.2

The new release is available from ftp.gnome.org as and its mirrors:

http://download.gnome.org/sources/pygobject/2.27/

What’s new since PyGObject 2.26.0?

• Implement richcompare for GIBaseInfo (Jonathan Matthew)
• [gi] add the rectangle_int_t forign cairo type (John (J5) Palmieri)
• add a foreign type for cairo_rectangle_int_t and allow it to be caller-allocated (John (J5) Palmieri)
• [gi] add overrides to Gtk.Editable (John (J5) Palmieri)
• [gi] handle virtual invokers (John (J5) Palmieri)
• add overrides for the insert* apis of list_store and tree_store (John (J5) Palmieri)
• fix dialogs overrides which were relying on broken inheritance behavior (John (J5) Palmieri)
• Add a overrides registry so we can refrence overrides inside the module (John (J5) Palmieri)
• setup.py: ease maintenance burden for tests installation (Dieter Verfaillie)
• fix inheritence issues in overrides (John (J5) Palmieri)
• tests: add runtests-windows.py script (Dieter Verfaillie)
• pygobject_postinstall.py: remove pygobject-2.0.pc treatment from postinstall as pkg-config on windows figures out the correct prefix at runtime (Dieter Verfaillie)
• pygobject_postinstall.py: remove shortcut creation (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: formatting cleanup, makes things readable (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: build and install tests (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: install documentation when available on build system (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: install pygobject-codegen script (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: install fixxref.py script (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: rearrange constants (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: check python version and pkgconig availability before anything else (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: simplify sys.platform != ‘win32′ detection and error reporting (Dieter Verfaillie)
• setup.py: rearrange imports (Dieter Verfaillie)
• README.win32: update build instructions (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: formatting cleanup, makes things readable (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: add ggc4 to MSVC compatible struct packing comment (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: use the pkgc_ functions instead of repeating pgk-config incantations all over the place (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: add pkgc_get_version and pkgc_get_defs_dir functions (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: PEP8: Comparisons to singletons like None should always be done with ‘is’ or ‘is not’, never the equality operators. (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: use True/False instead of 1/0 (Dieter Verfaillie)
• dsextras.py: rearrange imports (Dieter Verfaillie)
• Add distutils generated build/dist directories and eclipse configuration files to .gitignore (Dieter Verfaillie)
• [gi] add tests for calling dir on a dynamic module (John (J5) Palmieri)
• [gi] dir() now works for modules (Deepankar Sharma)
• Don’t check the inner type when comparing gpointers (Simón Pena)
• Release GIL when calling into C functions (John (J5) Palmieri)
• _gi.Repository : Implement missing info bindings. (José Aliste)
• include Python.h so that PY_VERSION_HEX gets defined (John (J5) Palmieri)
• [gi] make overrides work for python 3.x protocols and alias for python 2.x (John (J5) Palmieri)
• Override Gtk.Widget.translate_coordinates to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.TreeViewColumn.cell_get_position to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override get_path_at_pos and get_dest_row_at_pos of Gtk.TreeView to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.TreeSortable.get_sort_column_id to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override forward_search and backward_search of Gtk.TextIter to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.TextBuffer.get_selection_bounds to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.RecentInfo.get_application_info to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.IMContext.get_surrounding to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override get_item_at_pos, get_visible_range, get_dest_item_at_pos of Gtk.IconView to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.Container.get_focus_chain to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Override Gtk.ComboBox.get_active_iter to not return success value (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• [gi] make parameter check less strict when dealing with GValue params (John (J5) Palmieri)
• Shortcut removal is not needed on post-uninstall (John Stowers)
• Disable shortcut creation in windows installer (John Stowers)
• overrides for all subclasses of dialog (John (J5) Palmieri)
• Make TreeModel behave like in GTK-2.x (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Correctly build GIO on windows (John Stowers)
• Require Python >= 2.6.0 for Windows build (John Stowers)
• Fix depreciation warning in dsextras.py (John Stowers)
• Fix build on windows (John Stowers)
• Support for GCC4 in Windows distutils build – bug 626548 (Michael Culbertson)
• Remove obsolete comments in dsextras.py (John Stowers)
• Broken dsextras.py pkg-config check error message (John Stowers)
• add compat functions for the deprecated PyCObject api (John (J5) Palmieri)
• Add __path__ attributes. (Damien Caliste)
• Override Gtk.TreeSelection.get_selected to not return success value. (Sebastian Pölsterl)
• Make row optional in Gtk.TreeStore/ListStore.append override (Vincent Untz)
• Revert “add compat functions for the deprecated PyCObject api” (John (J5) Palmieri)
• return NULL instead of -1 which fixes crash when introspection is turned off (John (J5) Palmieri)
• add compat functions for the deprecated PyCObject api (John (J5) Palmieri)
• fix commit 7fe83108 which didn’t use the compat functions for string handling (John (J5) Palmieri)
• Python 3 fixes for dsextras and the python.m4 distribution files (John (J5) Palmieri)

Blurb:

GObject is a object system library used by GTK+ and GStreamer.

PyGObject provides a convenient wrapper for the GObject library for use in Python programs, and takes care of many of the boring details such as managing memory and type casting. When combined with PyGTK, PyORBit and gnome-python, it can be used to write full featured Gnome applications.

Like the GObject library itself PyGObject is licensed under the GNU LGPL, so is suitable for use in both free software and proprietary applications. It is already in use in many applications ranging from small single purpose scripts up to large full featured applications.

PyGObject requires glib >= 2.22.4 and Python >= 2.5.1 to build.
GIO bindings require glib >= 2.22.4.

The Introspection module is the next generation Python GObject library bindings. Instead of statically wrapping every GObject based library we can now dynamically accesses any of those libraries using GObject Introspection. It replaces the need for separate modules such as PyGTK, GIO and python-gnome to build a full GNOME application. Once new functionality is added to gobject library it is instantly available as a Python API without the need for an intermediate Python module.

Introspection/Python 2 bindings requires gobject-introspection >= 0.9.5 and pycairo >=1.0.2 or py2cairo >=1.8.10
Introspection/Python 3 bindings requires gobject-introspection >= 0.9.5, pycairo >=1.8.10 and Python >= 3.1

gobject-introspection bugs are being fixed at a rapid pace so it is recommend to use the latest version in git when filing bugs against the Introspection module.

–
John (J5) Palmieri
GNOME Foundation member
johnp@redhat.com

The Media lab entrance is situated on Amherst street (the same street as the Tang Center).  It is the Silver/Gray ultra modern building which also houses the MIT architecture department.  A sign in-front marks it as the “Center for Future Children”.  When you come in to the ground floor just take the elevators straight ahead, up to the 6th floor.   We have the entire event space to our disposal.

Details

On Saturday and Sunday we will be convening in the Tang Centre which is the same building as last year –

Rooms:
E51-315
E51-325
E51-335
E51-345
E51-372
E51-376

On Monday we have reserved rooms on the 6th floor of the Media Center

Please go to the 2010 Summit page and tells us you are coming!

Thanks goes out to the GNOME Foundation for sponsoring the hackfest, OLPC for providing space and Walter Bender of Sugar Labs for setting us up with a host.

I remember at one Boston Summit, being held at the MIT Stata Center, where Luis Villa, our much appreciated lawyer in training (or is he an actual lawyer yet and more importantly can we start cracking lawyer jokes?), was holding a Marketing BOF. In this BOF we ended up listing things that GNOME didn’t do well in which someone who was not part of the GNOME community but rather an invited guest took the session to mean that GNOME was in serious trouble and was folding in on itself.

What this person failed to realize is that self introspection and acknowledging ones weaknesses is the first step to becoming stronger. In our case it was the first steps to becoming a stronger community.

It is with this in mind that I read Henri Bergius’ great synopsis on the Apple MagicMouse vs the Open Office mouse design. It illustrates one of Open Source’s short comings with mitigating complexity. To stereotype us collectively a bit, we are like Sheldon from the show the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon can solve complex theoretical physics questions in his sleep but ask him to engage in simple social interaction and he hides behind condescension and excuses the interaction as unimportant.

Similarly, ask us to solve a complex computer problem and we will do it but ask us to make it easy to use, something the masses would go out and spend money on, and the same indignant statement seems to permeate every discussion about it – “that’s not something I would want to use”. Ok, so the analogy isn’t fair because as a group we are as diverse as any other but from the amazing things that we have produced it is clear that collectively we have a hard time hiding the complexity of it all. For some reason Apple is able to promote ease of use and they get praised for it but when we try to promote it we hit a wall of cynicism – “You’ll have to pry my user interface from my cold dead hands!”

So the question is will we ever learn how to mitigate complexity or will we just leave that for others to add as a competitive advantage? Is our end goal to just be a building block of modern technology or will we be the finished product itself? I don’t have that answer but I do know it is something we need to introspect on. We need to ask ourselves these hard questions, not as acknowledgement of failure but as acknowledgement of the fact that we can always do better by honestly and without cynicism, examine our weakest points. As other parts of the industry learn from our successes in development and internally implement changes based off of the Open Source model, we too need to look at their successes in the mass market and see what we learn from them.

I won’t be bringing a computer so I will only be checking my public e-mail accounts infrequently at internet cafe’s. The best way to reach me will be by phone.

Kamaloka-js is an implementation of the AMQP messaging protocol in native JavaScript. It is setup to be used with Orbited but can be used with any library which produce TCPSockets in the browser similar to Orbited. Kamaloka bindings are generated from qpid XML protocol description files.

Status

You can currently :

• negotiate a connection with an AMQP 0.10 server (support for adding and loading different versions is there if a new spec comes along)
• issue any commands and controls described by the spec (whether or not the server is doing anything with them has not been verified yet but, it doesn’t drop your connection)

Some limitation:

• for now we don’t handle multiple frames or channels though this feature is planned down the road
• we don’t do automatic version negotiation, but then we only implement one version

Why Kamaloka

amqp-js was taken by a project that implements the 0-8 AMQP protocol through Flash. If some day the qpid project wanted to use kamaloka-js as the definitive AMQP javascript implementation I would be happy to rename it qpid-js, but I am not that presumptuous. The thought process for the name went like this:

qpid->cupid->kama->kamaloka

Since Kama is in the same lexicon as Moksha (another project I work on which will be using the bindings) I thought it fit nice. It also allows me to name the QMF bindings kamarupa-js since according to the wikipedia Kama page “Kama-rupa is a subtle body or aura composed of desire, while Kama-loka is the realm this inhabits.” So QMF inhabits AMQP

Playground

Included in the distribution is a playground for testing the bindings in interesting AMQP configurations on your local machine. As pieces get implemented the playground will expand to show off different ways of using the bindings. Bellow is an example of using the current low level bindings based off the python subscribe example:

<script type="text/JavaScript">
   Orbited.settings.port = 9000;
   amqp_broker_port = 7000;

   amqp_conn = amqp.Connection({host: 'localhost',
                                port: amqp_broker_port,
                                send_hook: function(msg) { // for debugging
                                                       append_msg('SENT', msg);
                                                  },
                                recive_hook: function(data) { // for debugging
                                                        append_msg('RECV', data);
                                                    }
                             });
    amqp_conn.start();

    // You should have your server generate a UUID since browser methods
    // are unreliable at best
    session = amqp_conn.create_session('not_a_great_id' + (new Date().getTime() + Math.random()));

    var fedoraproject = "org.fedoraproject-" + session.name;
    session.Queue('declare', {queue:fedoraproject, exclusive:true});
    session.Exchange('bind', {exchange: "amq.topic",
                              queue: fedoraproject,
                              binding_key: "org.fedoraproject.#"});

    // Bind each queue to the control queue so we know when to stop
    session.Exchange('bind', {exchange:"amq.topic",
                              queue: fedoraproject,
                              binding_key:"control"});
</script>

Give me the code

• Project homepage & trac: https://fedorahosted.org/kamaloka-js/
• Mailing list: https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/kamaloka-js-devel
• git: git clone http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/kamaloka-js.git