Slightly OT: O'Reilly article

This might be slightly off-topic, but considering the things Jason sends our way (just kidding!), I figured "what the heck". Anyway, O'Reilly just published an article of mine on Beginning Python for Bioinformatics. While the target audience is the biology community, I think the content is a pretty good introduction to Python in general. And, who knows, you might find the biology stuff interesting as well. So, here is a link to the article: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2002/10/17/biopython.html -- Patrick K. O'Brien Orbtech http://www.orbtech.com/web/pobrien ----------------------------------------------- "Your source for Python programming expertise." -----------------------------------------------

At 09:53 AM 10/18/2002 -0500, you wrote:
This might be slightly off-topic, but considering the things Jason sends our way (just kidding!), I figured "what the heck".
I found that article "hyper relevant" to edu-sig -- *exactly* the kind of stuff I'm looking for re Python in education. Good job. This is one of those simple-yet-useful applications of a programmming language that teachers are always desperate to come up with. Kirby

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2002/10/17/biopython.html
I've added the link to http://www.python.org/doc/Newbies.html Everybody, please review that page -- are there any missing resources? Beginners books that I should list? --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

Everybody, please review that page -- are there any missing resources? Beginners books that I should list?
I think Wesley Chun's "Core Python Programming" is a good 'beginner' book. Slow enough to drive some of you crazy ;^) The author assumes little, but never talks down. He takes care to explain everything, especially background ideas and jargon. The book build-up very gently for the first half. Brief mini tutorials and/or exercise questions [with code answers] at the end of each chapter. The copy I have is good for 1.6 and anticipates 2.0 Two quickie random excerpts ... Chapter 2: Getting Started 2.8 Lists and Tuples Lists and tuples can be thought of as generic "buckets" with which to hold an arbitrary number of arbitrary Python objects. The items are ordered and accessed via indexed offsets, similar to arrays, except that lists and tuples can store different types of objects. The main difference between lists and tuples are: Lists are enclosed in [ ] and their elements and size can be changed, while tuples are enclosed in parentheses ( ) and cannot be updated. Tuples can be thought of for now as "read-only" lists. Subsets can be taken with the slice operator [] and [:] in the same manner as strings. <code examples follow. <in-depth discussion about uses and differences of list and tuples comes later on. > Chapter 10: Errors and Exceptions 10.1 Exceptions 10.1.1 Errors Before we get into details about what exceptions are, let us review what errors are. In the context of software, errors are either syntactical or logical in nature. Syntax errors indicate errors with the construct of the software and cannot be executed by the interpreter or compiled correctly. These errors must be repaired before execution can occur. Once programs are semantically correct, the only errors which remain are logical. Logical errors can be caused by lack of invalid input, or, in other cases, by the logic's not being able to generate, calculate, or otherwise produce the desired results based on the input. These errors are sometimes known as domain and range errors, respectively. When errors are detected by Python, the interpreter indicates that it has reached a point where continuing to execute the current flow is no longer possible. This is where exceptions come in into the picture. ./Jason

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2002/10/17/biopython.html Patrick Thanks very much for a great article :-) ./Jason

On Saturday 19 October 2002 10:52 am, Jason Cunliffe wrote:
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2002/10/17/biopython.html
Patrick
Thanks very much for a great article :-)
You are very welcome. I plan to write more. In fact, I just submitted one to IBM for their developerWorks site on the topic of Python Persistence Management. Basically, I cover just about everything you'd want to know about pickling, without turning it into a book. I seem to have trouble writing an article in less than 4,000 words. :-) -- Patrick K. O'Brien Orbtech http://www.orbtech.com/web/pobrien ----------------------------------------------- "Your source for Python programming expertise." -----------------------------------------------

Patrick K. O'Brien wrote:
You are very welcome. I plan to write more. In fact, I just submitted one to IBM for their developerWorks site on the topic of Python Persistence Management. Basically, I cover just about everything you'd want to know about pickling, without turning it into a book. I seem to have trouble writing an article in less than 4,000 words. :-)
Good news, and that's a great topic.. I hope you find some way to introduce Berkeley bsddb and standalone ZODB. best wishes ./Jason
participants (4)
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Guido van Rossum
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Jason Cunliffe
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Kirby Urner
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Patrick K. O'Brien