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

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/

>

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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@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*

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. E-mail to <Python-URL@phaseit.net>
should get through.

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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.