QOTW: "Testing real examples in doctstrings, or external documentation like tutorials, is important because it's very frustrating for people reading the docs if the examples don't work as advertised." - Marc Rintsch "If you don't document what the sundry variables are FOR, you're really not documenting your code at all -- just listing the names of some attributes is far too weak." - Alex Martelli If unittest is the standard way to write testing code, why do we still have doctest? Because serious testers use both. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/b49d428f5c... Coincidentally, Terry Hancock dedicates a large portion of his report from PyCON 2006 to the power and simplicity of doctest. http://blog.freesoftwaremagazine.com/users/t.hancock/2006/03/18/title_3 Do you have any recipes that you find indispensable in your daily work but that are not obvious to a beginner? Contribute them to Aahz' collection. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/8b752d91a7... When using eval() is too dangerous you may still be able to facilitate Python's parsing infrastructure as Michael Spencer shows: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/789f2c8f71... Want to squeeze your precious unicode data into ASCII strings? FLundh's solution builds on character decomposition and unicode.translate()'s ability to replace one character with many. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/77196f64a90ea9bc Andrew Dalke explores the performance implications of various approaches to class instantiation and has collected a few quotes on the __slots__ feature. http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2006/03/19/class_insta... Andrew Clover has derived nice Windows Icons from the new Python logo. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/0ad44c95e81b93cb The mythical Python 3000 is mythical no more as you can watch it evolve on its own mailing list. Rumour has it that there is also a branch in subversion, only slighly obfuscated by its name. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2006-March/thread.html ======================================================================== 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. For far, FAR more Python reading than any one mind should absorb, much of it quite interesting, several pages index much of the universe of Pybloggers. http://lowlife.jp/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/PythonProgrammersWeblog http://www.planetpython.org/ http://mechanicalcat.net/pyblagg.html 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 Steve Bethard, Tim Lesher, and Tony Meyer continue the marvelous tradition early borne by Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson and Brett Cannon 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/ 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%20python%20patch Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python hyperlinks retains a few gems. 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. del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary. It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence. http://del.icio.us/tag/python *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/topic/python/ (requires subscription) http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=python-url+group:comp.lang.python*&start=0&scoring=d& 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 There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments for and against are occasionally entertained. Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome. E-mail to should get through. To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning (approximately), ask 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.