Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (May 26)

[Steven Taschuk]

QOTW:  "[In 1993,] it was hard to regard Python as a general-purpose
language.  Ten years later, we can argue that Python is more
general-purpose than C!"             -- Cameron Laird

"It [neurotic reductionism] tries to make us efficient, even at the cost of
clarity and maintainability.  In that way lies bit-twiddling and assembler
language and soldering irons.  We must be diligent in our fight against it." 
-- Roy Smith



Discussion:
    Peter Hansen suggests that using agile methods can make it easier
    to learn a large framework (such as Twisted).
        <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3ECE1F88.A4233779%40engcorp.com>

    Tim Peters earns his weekly Python-URL mention by pointing out
    (and describing the overhead of) the COUNT_ALLOCS build option,
    which supplies object allocation statistics on a per-type basis.
        <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1053887860.10212.python-list%40python.org>

    David Abrahams discusses the idea that a function's contract
    should include what changes it might have made when it throws an
    exception.
        <http://groups.google.com/groups?th=29b6a90761b0f977#link9>

    A new DeveloperWorks article (by Python-URL's very own Cameron
    Laird) about good exception style.
        <http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sc13.html>

Announcements:
    Python 2.2.3c1: The first release candidate for the next
    maintenance release of Python.
        <http://www.python.org/2.2.3/>

    Design by Contract for Python 1.0 beta 1: A cross between full
    Eiffel-style contracts and the doctest module.
        <http://www.wayforward.net/pycontract/>

    IPython 0.4.0: An enhanced interactive Python shell.
        <http://ipython.scipy.org/>

    SCons 0.14: A build tool; an improved substitute for the classic
    make utility.
        <http://www.scons.org/>

========================================================================
Everything 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
    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 newly-revitalized newsgroup at least 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 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 has replaced the Python Consortium
    as an independent nexus of activity
        http://www.python.org/psf/

    Cetus does much of the same
        http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html

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

    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.

    *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/         
  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.
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