thebops 0.1.7

README.TXT
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THeBoPS - Tobias Herp's Bag of Python Stuff
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This is a collection of Python modules I created over the years and improved
every now and then, while programming for fun at home. Since I consider them
useful and like them a lot, I wanted to have them at work, too, and thus
created this package.

Contained modules are:

anyos.py
Tries to help when developing portable programs; includes a find_progs
function which helps e.g. a suitable *X "find" executable on Windows(tm)
systems (if there is one installed); see thebops.likeix below.

colours.py
Collects information about HTML, CSS, SVG colours

counters.py
A module to help count whatever you want, including different types of
errors, warnings etc.

enhopa.py
The "enhanced option parser".
The optparse/optik module is quite cool. Some consider it outdated because
of the newer argparse module; but argparse can't do everything optparse can
(and vice versa), and thus both have their uses.
The enhopa module does some minor tweaks to optparse; since optparse is
"deprecated" now and won't be maintained beyond version 1.5.3 (to my
knowledge, at least), I'll replace it by my own version of optparse, to which
the improvements can be applied much more easily.
See thebops.opo as well, which (of course) doesn't care whether optparse or
thebops.enhopa (or thebops.optparse; see below) is used.

errors.py
An error handling module for console programs. To count the errors as well,
use the thebops.counters module.

iscales.py
Collects information about image scales and their names.

likeix.py
Collects knowledge how to find certain *X conforming tools on Windows systems
(but of course on *X as well, where they should be present in the PATH),
using the find_progs function from thebops.anyos.
Perhaps the best way to use this is the ToolsHub class;
see likeix_demo.

modinfo.py
A module which allows Python modules to tell about themselves.
Can be used as a commandline tool (and is installed as such), or can be
imported by a (thus self-documenting) module. Can execute doctests, of
course.

opo.py
optparse options: A collection of often used optparse option definitions,
including some which use callback functions.
Interesting for development: add_trace_option/DEBUG;
see opo_demo.

optparse.py
This module, of course, owes almost everything to the optparse/optik module
by Greg Ward. Some (for now) minor enhancements are applied; this copy is
intended to obsolete the enhopa module (above) entirely.

rexxbi.py
"REXX builtins"; some functions which are built-in to the scripting language
REXX by Mike Cowlishaw, re-implemented in Python, e.g. "overlay" and the
swiss army knife of string manipulation (when avoiding regular expressions),
"translate". The functions are documented by doctests.
See rexxbi_demo.

shtools.py
Some utiltities for console programs, e.g. an "ask" function which
understands choices specifications like "yes,sure:1;no,nope:0;always;never";
see shtools_demo.

termwot.py
This is "Tobias Herp's Terminal Waste of Time". Not very useful, but helps
to make console programs a little bit more fun.
See termwot_demo.


Final remark:
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This package is not internationalized yet, but no effort is spared, and I'm
quite eager to get this done. Strings are marked for translation, babel
finds them, and the first Gettext catalogue (hey, this is Europe!) is
created. Any help to make my distribution package use it is appreciated ...

Meanwhile it helps to understand some German.

BTW, there is nothing wrong with that:
It's better (by far!) to document your code well in your own language than to
write nonsense in a foreign one (and trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
Some past and present colleagues of mine prove this every single day.)
The only point in which I strictly disagree with PEP 8.

Tobias Herp