Python-URL! - Weekly Python News and Links (May 26)

May 27, 2003, 06:00 (0 Talkback[s])

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).

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.

A new DeveloperWorks article (by Python-URL's very own Cameron Laird) about good exception style.

Announcements:

Python 2.2.3c1: The first release candidate for the next maintenance release of Python.

Design by Contract for Python 1.0 beta 1: A cross between full Eiffel-style contracts and the doctest module.

IPython 0.4.0: An enhanced interactive Python shell.

SCons 0.14: A build tool; an improved substitute for the classic make utility.

---

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

Notice especially the master FAQ

http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html

PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the daily python url

Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new) World-Wide Web articles related to Python. 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.

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.

The Python Package Index catalogues packages.

The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references to all sorts of Python resources.

Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group mailing lists

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

Cetus does much of the same

Python FAQTS

The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a SourceForge reincarnation.

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*

Archive probing tricks of the trade:

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!".

Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and sponsor the "Python-URL!" project.

Related Stories:

• Python-URL! - Weekly Python News and Links (May 20)(May 21, 2003)
• Python-URL! - Weekly Python News and Links (May 12)(May 13, 2003)
• Python-URL! - Weekly Python News and Links (May 5)(May 06, 2003)
• Python-URL! - Weekly Python News and Links (April 29)(Apr 30, 2003)