News and announcements

Pythonscope 0.3.1 Release Notes and Funding Request

Written for Pythoscope by Paul Hildebrandt on 2008-10-13

Pythoscope, the Python unit test generator, is growing and maturing. Over the last three months we've made pretty incredible progress. We've had a full time developer and part time project manager.

Where we are:
Technical
* Static analysis of code. With this we can generate and maintain unit tests stubs. Just with this feature it's very usable and valuable.
* Dynamic analysis of code. With user provided code entry points we run the code and generate unit tests with inputs and testable results. There are LOTS of things to added to this feature. We've started and we have working cases.
* We have lots of tests in our code. We believe strongly in testing. We would be kinda hypocritical otherwise. :)
Organizational:
* Web site is in a pretty good state. (http://pythoscope.org)
* We are setup on PyPI for your easy_install convenience. (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pythoscope/)
* We are using Launchpad to host our code so anyone can see it and contribute. (https://launchpad.net/pythoscope)
* We are using Google Groups for our conversations. (http://groups.google.com/group/pythoscope)
* We use the MIT license so big companies won't fear using us.

Where we are going:
* We've have a roadmap! (https://launchpad.net/pythoscope/trunk/+milestones) While launchpad's blueprint/milestone system isn't perfect it does give us a way to show everyone what we are thinking.
* Please inform us of your needs. It helps guide us.

What do we need:
* We've made good progress mainly because we were lucky enough to have had sponsored development most of the time. Not all of it was but having some financial support was what made the progress so fast.
* We have a contribute link off our main page. (http://pythoscope.org/how-to-contribute) There are lots of ways to contribute, most are not financial.
* Financial support. This is just Paul speaking here: We are trying to get enough financial support to keep Michal, the main developer, focused on the project. He is an amazing developer but still requires money for eating and stuff. The amount of work he can get done when he is dedicated is amazing. The money will be used to keep him focused. Funding doesn't have to come from one source. Anything is welcome.
* Please feel no pressure to give money or guilt for not giving. That would make us feel bad. We really want you to use the product. We are just trying to present a way for companies to give back to an open source product they may use. We like it when companies support open source. :)
* What if your company/project wants to use Pythoscope and not contribute at all? Remember by using it you ARE contributing. :) Please use it, we like that. Consider letting us know if you are using it, that encourages us. We are still spending lots of our own time working on Pythoscope because we think it's a good idea and can help the Python community. So we do like kind words. :)

Out Latest Release:

Pythoscope 0.3.1 released
-------------------------
This is a bugfix release, featuring better Windows support, more stable dynamic analysis and handling of Python generators. We plan on doing 0.3.2 next week, after which we'll start working on 0.4, capable of generating mocks and much better reconstruction of application objects interaction.

You can download and install the new release of Pythoscope manually from:

   http://pythoscope.org/local--files/download/pythoscope-0.3.tar.gz

or use setuptools by executing:

   easy_install pythoscope==0.3.1

Special thanks to Josef (https://launchpad.net/~josef-pktd) and Kent (https://launchpad.net/~ktenney) for their detailed bug reports! This release wouldn't be possible without their support.

For more details on Pythoscope see http://pythoscope.org/ .

Full summary of changes:
* Added implementation of samefile function for Windows (`#271882 <https://bugs.launchpad.net/pythoscope/+bug/271882>`_).
* Fixed wrong indentation bug (`#271892 <https://bugs.launchpad.net/pythoscope/+bug/271892>`_).
* Made lib2to3.pgen2.parse.ParseError pickable (`#271904 <https://bugs.launchpad.net/pythoscope/+bug/271904>`_).
* Added `support for Python generators <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/pythoscope/+spec/handle-python-generators>`_.
* Fixed static inspection of functions having attributes with default values (`#275459 <https://bugs.launchpad.net/pythoscope/+bug/275459>`_).