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:
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.
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.