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reusable software components

Kevin Altis altis at semi-retired.com
Fri Nov 9 23:05:23 EST 2001 
Are there any current efforts to build cross-platform Python components or
standardize a Python component model?

I've been thinking about creating a component framework for PythonCard,
which will use wxPython for its GUI widgets. The component framework is
mostly going to be a set of conventions to follow, so that a visual
environment can hook together components and make compound components. Since
Python itself already provides introspection, what seems to be missing are
the hints to use at design time for specifying the properties and events for
the component. While Python doesn't use strong typing, components need type
info, especially when the component is wrapping a native control written in
C/C++.

There is no particular reason the conventions need to be limited to
wxPython, they could be applied to tkinter components or even non-visual
components.

Software components are described by the excellent Java Beans intro, which
you should take ten minutes to read if you don't know what software
components are:

http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Beans/Beans1/index.ht
ml

Anyway, I searched the comp.lang.python archive and a few other sources and
except for some older messages talking about COM and CORBA and Java Beans, I
didn't find any current efforts to make a standard set of conventions for
Python components. The PyXPCOM stuff looks like it is stalled out.

I would appreciate any feedback, suggestions, or links on software
components for Python.

Thanks,

ka
ps. My first post seems to have been eaten by my ISP, but apologies in
advance for a double-post if it shows up (I posted the first one over six
hours ago).
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