[Dev] PyCon Report

[Phillip J. Eby]

I'd have to say a major theme at PyCon this year was MDA's.  (Model-Driven 
Architectures.)  Counting Chandler, there were at least four presentations 
on such systems, with varying degrees of automated UI generation based on 
the model.  Two used Spike-style descriptor APIs to describe their models, 
and one was more database-driven.  There may also have been other 
presentations on MDA's that I didn't see.  I also noticed that the Envisage 
framework had semi-automatic generation of a wxPython "details view" 
(similar to Chandler's) from a small amount of metadata added to its 
classes, and suggested to Ted it might be a good idea for us to study and 
steal ideas from them.

The mini-sprint on Python Eggs that Bob Ippolito and I did was a great 
start; we now have both the bdist_egg build facility and enough of a 
runtime built that it's now possible to experiment with using .egg files to 
build and distribute Chandler components, including both its dependencies 
and parcels.  While at the conference, Glyph (of Twisted) and Fred Drake 
(of Zope) expressed strong interest in using eggs as a basis for their own 
packaging and distribution efforts, so it should be possible to get broad 
support for the format, such that Chandler doesn't end up having to create 
its own solutions, and that Chandler will be able to take advantage of a 
rich supply of Python libraries distributed as eggs.  If you'd like more 
information about the .egg format, see:

     http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/PythonEggs

There were, of course, lots of interesting discussions with OSAF and 
non-OSAF folks in between presentations and during the sprints.  We talked 
about maybe doing a Spike sprint or show-and-tell for OSAF staff, but the 
main Chandler sprint was a higher priority during the sprint days, and 
there was really no time available during the conference days, but a few of 
us did have some interesting conversations over dinner or other 
meals.  Interestingly, a non-OSAF person actually asked me if I was going 
to give a talk on Spike, and I also saw a non-OSAF person reading a Spike 
CVS log; it might have been the same person, but I only saw him from the 
back so I don't know for sure.

I think that's about it for things that other people haven't already 
reported on, which I guess just goes to show that sometimes procrastination 
pays off handsomely.  :)