Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jun 7)

Tue Jun 7 16:05:10 CEST 2005

QOTW: "[expletives deleted]" - John Machin, snipping a section of Perl code.

"What sort of programmer are you?  If it works on your computer, it's done,
ship it!" - Grant Edwards

    Guido invites us to comment on PEP 343. This Python Enhancement
    Proposal includes a 'with' statement, allowing you simply and
    reliably wrap a block of code with entry and exit code, in which
    resources can be acquired and released. It also proposes enhancements
    to simple generators, making them easy to use to build these wrappers:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/a9d9b591ca7b296d

    Timothy Smith would like to truncate a Decimal. It's not as easy
    as it sounds, but Raymond Hettinger has the definitive solution,
    as is so often the case:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/f40d2863110dc81e

    If you need to set Windows' environment variables persistently,
    Gigi's recipe is what you need:
        http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/416087

    EasyInstall, Phillip J. Eby's CPAN clone is ready to go:
        http://dirtsimple.org/2005/06/cpan-goodies-for-all.html

    How does one check if a given datetime is within a specified
    range? Andrew Dalke shows Maksim Kasimov how:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/e186c915a237c9a7

    Robert Kern shows how to turn a CSV file into a list of
    dictionaries, and Peter Otten shows off a lovely iterator
    trick for turning adjacent list entries into dictionary elements:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/ed07b9f71724dcbd

    Ryan Tomayko defends the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL,
    Python/Perl/PHP) platform:
        http://naeblis.cx/rtomayko/2005/05/28/ibm-poop-heads

    Skip Montanaro tells us why Emacs is the perfect IDE for him:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/6df813d2d8d187fb#8438e5f0d2352e5f

    O'Reilly has published a couple of interesting articles by
    Jeremy Jones, "Python Standard Logging" and  "Writing Google
    Desktop Search Plugins":
        http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2005/06/02/logging.html
        http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2005/06/01/kongulo.html

    How can you reliably eradicate data from a hard disk? Nuke the
    site from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/2e73c88596c35427

    Tomasz Bieruta shows us how to sort large files:
        http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/415581

    Google's new Sitemaps allow a Webmaster to tell Google what to
    spider. They provide a Python script to get you started: 
        https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.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/

    The Python Business Forum "further[s] 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%20python%20patch

    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 at pythonjournal.com and editor at 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.python.*

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
  http://www.ddj.com/topics/pythonurl/ (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

Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <Python-URL at phaseit.net> should get through.

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning
(approximately), ask <claird at 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.