Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jan 23)

Sun Jan 23 12:08:15 EST 2005

QOTW:  "XML with elementtree is what makes me never have [to] think about
XML again." -- Istvan Albert

"'Plays well with others' was a strong motivator for Python's design, and
that often means playing by others' rules." -- Tim Peters

    Type mutability, and why some types are immutable.  This has been
    discussed before, and should be a FAQ topic (if it isn't already):
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/f05c9cbb7e58db9b
        http://www.python.org/tim_one/000195.html

    Caching instances of classes for reuse:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/9178beed046956d2

    Storing data in a persistant fashion.  One link discussing concurrency,
    the other discussing data storage mechanisms.  A link to PyTables as a
    way of storing and indexing large amounts of data, and the announcement
    for Dejavu 1.3, which also stores persistant data:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/072e6da39a4e8760
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/7f2849d3099abfdc
        http://pytables.sourceforge.net/html/WelcomePage.html
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/01a77dc70a55fc94

    So, you want to use SFTP in Python?  Paramiko is the answer (or so I read):
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/e95e8482c023fe25
        http://www.lag.net/paramiko/

    Circular iteration, or any strange iteration tasks?  Try itertools!
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/42bd800632199d2a

    What do PyChecker and Pylint have to do with each other?
    Are they configurable?  And do *you* know a half-dozen 
    distinct formats for printing a multi-line text?
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/2ff633d4474e52e7/

    Jeremy Bowers and Dan Stromberg know that some applications
    should do the right thing, whether they happen to have a
    bit-mapped user interface at run time or not:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/9ff27f0e5fea2045/

    The Bangalore Python Meetup first convened on 22 January 2005:
        http://python.meetup.com/158/events/?eventId=3974233&action=pastdetail

    Why generator expressions sometimes don't beat list comprehensions, and
    fitting Python to requirements.  Let not the anti-functional fashion
    obscure that filter() still sometimes makes for better coding than the
    comparable list comprehension:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/0155347dab27026d
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/b15bab678ad9b2dc

    Security is hard.  Even the narrow aspect of cryptography is
    hard, if only for the complication state politics makes of the
    mathematics and engineering involved.  Paul Rubin, Nick Craig-
    Wood, and others present a few details:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/fcf8b0764d369cfa

    No, really--Python does *that*, too.  Although many people
    regard hardware interfacing, and its associated bit-twiddling,
    as outside Python's purview, they're ... wrong.  See for 
    yourself how Python makes for *clearer* codings than C or
    Java or Assembler or ...:
        http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/ea293235bef39473/

========================================================================
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

    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.

    deli.cio.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.*

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