Python at work at Secret Labs AB

PythonWorks from the Secret Labs AB

Håkan Karlsson

Secret Labs AB

hakan@pythonware.com
http://www.pythonware.com

Dec 15, 1999

Abstract

Secret Labs AB has developed a commercial Integrated Development Environment for Python; PythonWorks, which will be demonstrated at the eighth International Python Conference in Washington DC, USA.

1. Objectives

Our goal with this technology demonstration is to show version 1.0 of our PythonWorks platform on which you rapidly can build scripts and applications. We will give a general demonstration of what PythonWorks is, its philosophy, and how to use it in practice.

2. PythonWorks Overview

PythonWorks is an innovative integrated RAD (Rapid Application Development) platform specially designed for efficient development in Python.

The design philosophy behind PythonWorks is to make an efficient, easy-to-use (minimize complexity), flexible (allow user customization) and complete working environment (everything you need), which can handle software development tasks for multiple platforms. (Windows, UNIX etc.)

Version 1.0 of PythonWorks includes the following components:

Python editor with syntax coloring. Visual Tracer. (For debugging.) Resource management through an integrated code repository.

Tools for easy distribution of Python programs.

An user-interface design tool for Tkinter and uiToolkit.

Prebuilt user-interface components for Tkinter, including a version of PythonWare's uiToolkit extension.

Extensive on-line documentation.

PythonWorks is a complete product and ready to use right out of the box.

PythonWorks will initially be available on Windows 95, 98, and NT. Versions for Solaris 2.6 and later, Digital Unix 4, and Linux will be released in early 2000. Availability on other platforms depends on demand.

3. Advanced Features
PythonWorks support user actions and plugins. This makes PythonWorks very flexible. Actions are plain Python scripts that you place in your project. PythonWorks automatically recognizes and dynamically integrates these into the programming environment. Actions can be added locally to one project or globally to all projects. You can for example add: Actions to perform special tasks. Editors and Viewers for custom resource types. Documentation packages. Interfaces to existing version management systems. Editor preferences. (Colors and fonts etc.) Editor bindings. (Emacs, notepad etc.) Deployment behavior. (makefiles, test, and distribution scripts.)
4. The company

Secret Labs AB is a company located in Sweden that uses Python aggressively for all its product developments. Secret Labs is currently focusing its business on development tools for the Python community, under the PythonWare label.

Secret Labs is also responsible for the Python Imaging Library (PIL), PythonWare Sound Toolkit (PST), XML-RPC for Python, and other more or less well known software products.