Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Oct 4)

[Ville Vainio]

QOTW: "...then we get a signal through, then various miracles occur, and
the conclusion is, 'You mean it only takes thirteen lines of code to do
that? Our software folks said it's not possible.'
Cameron Laird, on his typical experience with industrial automation projects

"In fact what you'd really like is a 'resumption' object created by raising
the exception, that you can pass control to at any time, sort of like
yielding from a generator. Maybe you're getting deja vu now, since this is
basically what Stackless Python continuations were."
Paul Rubin, on the idea of resumable exceptions


Marco Aschwanden and others weigh the virtues of the commercial Python
IDEs WingIDE and Komodo.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=mailman.3996.1096354841.5135.python-list@python.org

Thomas wonders about the speed of getting a list of directories via
os.listdir() and os.path.isdir(), and gets suggestions for interesting
platform specific optimizations.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Jacek Generowicz is looking for a metaclass that would allow
introducing several methods with the same name in a class, spawning a
long and educational thread about metaclasses and learning a simpler
way of achieving the goal using the upcoming decorator syntax.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Bishara Gabriel publishes a proposal aiming to introduce Python and
object oriented approach to the realm of social sciences.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=mailman.4083.1096472628.5135.python-list@python.org

Srijit Kumar Bhadra posts a version of the same program using
PythonNet, IronPython and Boo, showcasing the similarity in the way
code is written.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Connelly Barnes has written "htmldata", a module that can convert html
documents to basic Python data structures and back.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Martin Maney relays information about the Python slant of Ubuntu,
the Debian-derivative that has been gathering lots of users and
attention even before the official release.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Wolfgang Keller can't find the libraries he needs for industrial
control applications. A discussion about the sorry state of software
for industrial control in general, and the suitability of Python in
particular ensues. People actually seem to have plans for improving
the situation.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Alia Khouri needs to "sell" Python to his company.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

Andrew Kuchling would like to see the focus of Python development
moving away from hacking the interpreter and towards improving the
standard library.
http://www.amk.ca/diary/archives/cat_python.html#003382

Paul Rubin, Nick Craig-Wood, et al. exhibit experts' thoughts on
sorting and memory use.
http://groups.google.com/groups?frame=left&th=b73a0c321d8c4c5b

Larry Bates argues that we shouldn't curtail the life of
"debugging" code. Steve Holden, Ian Parker, and others provide
examples, and consider concrete uses of assert() and __debug__.
http://groups.google.com/groups?frame=left&th=aaf241b357c6f1b


========================================================================
Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in
these pages:

Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional
center of Pythonia
http://www.python.org
Notice especially the master FAQ
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html

PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the
marvelous daily python url
http://www.pythonware.com/daily
Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new)
World-Wide Web articles related to Python.
http://www.awaretek.com/nowak/mygale.html
While cosmetically similar, Mygale and the Daily Python-URL
are utterly different in their technologies and generally in
their results.

comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newsgroup weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python.announce

Brett Cannon continues the marvelous tradition established by
Andrew Kuchling and Michael Hudson of intelligently summarizing
action on the python-dev mailing list once every other week.
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/

The Python Package Index catalogues packages.
http://www.python.org/pypi/

The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references
to all sorts of Python resources.
http://www.vex.net/~x/parnassus/

Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group
mailing lists
http://www.python.org/sigs/

The Python Business Forum "further the interests of companies
that base their business on ... Python."
http://www.python-in-business.org

Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line
match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're
subject with a vision of what the language makes practical.
http://www.pythonology.com/success

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python
Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official
responsibility for Python's development and maintenance.
http://www.python.org/psf/
Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation.
http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html

Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches.
http://www.google.com/groups?as_usubject=weekly python patch

Cetus collects Python hyperlinks.
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html

Python FAQTS
http://python.faqts.com/

The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and
interesting recipes.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python

Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are
http://www.python.org/channews.rdf
http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi
http://python.de/backend.php
For more, see
http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?ShowMatch=python&ShowStatus=all
The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a
SourceForge reincarnation.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=355470&group_id=5470&func=browse
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0042.html

The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com.
(e-mail address removed) and (e-mail address removed)
welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding
of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work.

*Py: the Journal of the Python Language*
http://www.pyzine.com

Archive probing tricks of the trade:
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python&num=100
http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=site=groups&group=comp.lang.python.*

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://www.ddj.com/topics/pythonurl/
http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant)
or
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python


Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <[email protected]> should get through.

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning
(approximately), ask <[email protected]> to subscribe. Mention
"Python-URL!".


-- The Python-URL! Team--

Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Python-URL!" project.

 

[Cameron Laird]

.
[lots of other important
and exciting material]
.
.

Jacek Generowicz is looking for a metaclass that would allow
introducing several methods with the same name in a class, spawning a
long and educational thread about metaclasses and learning a simpler
way of achieving the goal using the upcoming decorator syntax.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected] .
.
.
Srijit Kumar Bhadra posts a version of the same program using
PythonNet, IronPython and Boo, showcasing the similarity in the way
code is written.
http://groups.google.com/[email protected] .
.
.
control applications. A discussion about the sorry state of software
for industrial control in general, and the suitability of Python in
particular ensues. People actually seem to have plans for improving .
.
.
Andrew Kuchling would like to see the focus of Python development
moving away from hacking the interpreter and towards improving the
standard library.
http://www.amk.ca/diary/archives/cat_python.html#003382

.
.
.
Magazines have definite appetites for, among other things,
articles of the "What's new in Release 2.x and how to make
best use of it" and "X-ing with three different technologies:
concrete examples of good style" sorts.

I feel responsible for escalating the pugnacity of the process-
control thread. That adds to my responsibility to clarify: FAR
more than any narrow technical complaints about the software of
industrial automation I have, I'm ready to take over as dictator
and change the *approach* of the vendors. It's not so much that
I think the applications and libraries are bad, as that they're
senselessly closed and ludicrously misdocumented. In general.
In my opinion.

Finally, AMK is soooooooo right. His statement is so perfect,
even I can't find anything to add to it.

 

[Dan Perl]

My question is:

"What do I have to say to get into the QOTW?"
Dan Perl, on his own personal prejudices

QOTW: "...then we get a signal through, then various miracles occur, and
the conclusion is, 'You mean it only takes thirteen lines of code to do
that? Our software folks said it's not possible.'
Cameron Laird, on his typical experience with industrial automation
projects

"In fact what you'd really like is a 'resumption' object created by
raising
the exception, that you can pass control to at any time, sort of like
yielding from a generator. Maybe you're getting deja vu now, since this
is
basically what Stackless Python continuations were."
Paul Rubin, on the idea of resumable exceptions

I couldn't resist.

 

[Peter Otten]

"What do I have to say to get into the QOTW?"
Dan Perl, on his own personal prejudices

If it were predictable, wouldn't it be boring?

Peter

 

[Ville Vainio]

Dan> "What do I have to say to get into the QOTW?"

Change your last name?

 

[Peter Otten]

Dan> "What do I have to say to get into the QOTW?"

Change your last name?

Or his first name? Damn Perl...

Peter

 

[Dan Python]

Done

Dan> "What do I have to say to get into the QOTW?"

Change your last name?

 

[Peter Otten]

Done

+1 NCOTW (Name change of the week

 

[Leopold Toetsch]

[ quoting reordered ]

Done

Don't do that.

Sam Ruby is working on Pie-thon (Python on Parrot):
http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2004/10/02/Pyrate

No joke. But:
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/04/01/parrot.htm

SCNR, leo

 

[Dan Perl]

No joke. But:

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/04/01/parrot.htm

That one is excellent. It's the first time I've seen it.

Yeah, there is a good reason they have the date in the URL.

 

[Peter L Hansen]

Dan Python wrote:




+1 NCOTW (Name change of the week

Hardly seems fair... if you or I did it there would be
all manner of rude comments about the phallic connotations
of our new moniker... ;-)

-Peter