Our first year at nbPython!

Our first year at nbPython.org has passed, and the team released our first public update of the
Python Plugin for NetBeans IDE (8.1) on November 24, 2015 !

The plugin is available at http://plugins.netbeans.org/plugin/61688/python
It requires NetBeans IDE 8.1.

Note: This plugin is also available on the NetBeans Plugin Portal Update Center. Use 'Tools > Plugins' action from the NetBeans IDE 8.1 main menu for convenient installation of this plugin!

What's new in this version

(Internal version 151118 )
- Greatly improved stability. Over 200 Bugzilla tickets resolved since December 2014.
- Rudimentary support for Web projects: html, js, css files within a Python project.
- Setuptools project type added (Linux, Solaris and Mac only).
- Improved handling of UTF-8 and other character sets.
- Includes bundled Jython 2.7 (Courtesy of Jython.org ).
- Some debugger bugs fixed; Replacement debugger planned.
- 8.1 verification PASSED!

Improved feature support is planned by the nbPython.org volunteers!
At the top of this list are Autocomplete/Code Completion, Refactoring, and the Debugger.

Thank You!

A big thank you to all involved in the production and final quality assurance of the plugin!
Especially Julien, Julio, Vincent, Ralph, and testers Gregory, Val, Serhii, and Tim.

Special thanks to our "Advisors" Geertjan and Jiří.

We still have work to do, but are encouraged by the progress made.

The snake is on the move!

Status: I am happy to report we accomplished much in the last month.

In honor of our six-month anniversary, I reworked and "branded" our website and forums!
For those who like to "see the links": http://nbpython.org and http://forums.nbpython.org  Also,
we applied for and received free licenses for Atlassian's suite of tools. See my next post for more...

We now have Jython 2.7 in our Development distribution at NetBeans effective 17-May-2015!
As previously reported, the folks at Jython.org have been very busy, and released Jython 2.7 Final.

Ralph and Julio have incorporated Jython 2.7 RC3 (#251765) into our current development release. Don't worry, it's the same as "2.7 Final"; only the name was changed, as 2.7 RC3 was accepted as "Final" after we incorporated 2.7 RC3 into our release. We plan to include the latest Jython 2.7 (as of July) with the Python Plugin for Netbeans 8.1, and we will make that update in late July, 2015.

Ralph also fixed #155073 and updated the project to build with JDK 7.

Julio and I finished most of the work on Python Platform Autodetect (#251902 and ten other bugs). At roughly two seconds per platform, it's occasionally slow if you have several platforms on your machine. I will investigate avoiding the "slowness detector".

Vincent continues working on UTF-8 (#153498), now that Jython 2.7 is in place. He is also working on related issues #158693 and #171688.

Julien has been working on the design for Pyramid support, as well as testing (setuptools) Projects and the new/updated websites including Agile-JIRA and Confluence..

Val and Serhii are performing some exploratory/UAT testing. You can too!
See: How to install new Development build(s) for testing.

Upcoming tasks - We continue to work through the bugs at bugzilla. and the tasks described above that are not finished. There remain key pieces of functionality to be defined and implemented (TBD).
Greg and I will meet with the Chicago Pythonistas later this week to garner more feedback.

Stay tuned...

Python Project recruits Serhii Hrytsenko for QA!

I'm pleased to announce that Serhii Hrytsenko (SHrytsenko) has joined the Python Project as a QA Tester! He is currently a freelance Software Tester, and is an alumnus of the Software Quality Assurance program at IT Labs UA. 

I was very happy when Serhii emailed me to accept the position, and even more pleased that he has dedicated a good portion of his time to this project. He is currently testing Editor features, reviewing test cases in Synergy, and reading through NetBeans Python bugs in Bugzilla.

He comes recommended to us by Slavik Ivakin, top tester at my JavaFX team on NetCAT 8.0.

Please give Serhii a warm welcome [generous applause]!