The changes in layout.py are mostly concerned with the MDMF share
format. In particular, we define read and write proxy objects used by
retrieval, publishing, and other code to write and read the MDMF share
format. We create equivalent proxies for SDMF objects so that these
objects can be suitably general.
we actually exercise during tests) into more specific exceptions, so they
don't get optimized away. The best rule to follow is probably this: if an
exception is worth testing, then it's part of the API, and AssertionError
should never be part of the API. Closes#749.
