QOTW: "That's a healthy relationship with a language, I feel, when the language and me are struggling with the same problems." - Harald Massa "Fight the trend to add silly disclaimers everywhere!" - GvR Tim Peters helps Kenneth McDonnald over the hurdle of initializing subclasses of an immutable type like str. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1322.1091854312.5135.python-lis... Jeff Epler digs into the C Source to find out why overriding file.write() has no effect on the print statement. http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=7d04h0dskqbdf2j1f8429726j766mnhrhj%4... You could assure Zeljko Vrba, the "Perl expert wanting to learn Python", that he has already made the hardest step in the new direction. http://groups.google.com/groups?c2coff=1&threadm=slrncguga2.fcp.mordor%40fly.srk.fer.hr --- "@ looks like a friendly little womb, with a happy little birth canal, out of which is born a single pure expression" - Tim Peters The appearance of decorators - a mechanism for wrapping functions and adding attributes to them - in the second alpha of Python 2.4 stirs a heated discussion. Many do not like the introduction of a new symbol, "@" aka "pie", for decoration, or see the chosen one as too "visually dense" (obtrusive) - or just plain ugly. Barry Warsaw weighs alternative symbols. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-August/047133.html Christopher T. King argues that the new feature is trying to be all things to all people. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44.0408050856390.31290-10000... Steven Bethard explores the option space, i. e. all aspects of decorator syntax that can be chosen independently. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d11dcfba.0408060919.10c7cdd6%40posting.... Of course the discussion has been going on among Python's developers for a while and the PEP maintainers who where left behind at some point are struggling hard to update it to the current state of affairs. http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0318.html http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/moinmoin/PythonDecorators I cannot close this section without at least one use-case, so have a look at Michele Simionato's multimethod enhancement, building on code by Howard Stearns and - decorators. http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=4edc17eb.0408080531.6f8963f9%40posti... (Now be prepared for a more down-to-earth Python-URL next week) --- Let's go back to the "other" pie. Even the most peaceful Pythoneer will ponder "pie-decorating" the author of this short pie-thon report. It's fun, though. http://www.ntk.net/2004/08/06/ ======================================================================== 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[s] the interests of companies that base their business on ... Python." http://www.python-in-business.org 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 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. editor@pythonjournal.com and editor@pythonjournal.cognizor.com 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%3Dgroups%26group%3Dcomp.lang.pytho... 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 <Python-URL@phaseit.net> should get through. To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning (approximately), ask <claird@phaseit.net> 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.