Python-URL! – Weekly Python News and Links (November 11)

QOTW:  "These days, I know that I blindly hit 'd' whenever I see
'**ANYTHING IN CAPS**', since it tends to be related to some very
interesting financial transaction involving some African country.  So
welcome to c.l.p, and I bet you a repost without the spam-triggering
ALLCAPS will get you some good answers."  Fernando Pérez

"No other language [than Python] is more successful in vanishing behind
the problem."  Christian Tismer


Articles and threads
    A long discussion on the relative benefits of Python and Lisp,
    including several variants of Lisp such as Scheme and Logo reveals
    some insights into the similarities and differences:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=mailman.1036969814.9278.python-list%40python.org

    A typical question about how to parse hierarchical structures with
    regular expressions (something which regular expressions are not
    well suited for) results in some insights:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=2259b0e2.0211060659.30631e4f%40posting.google.com

    This article shows how quickly discovered defects get fixed and
    checked in after they're found:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=m2u1ivlxkh.fsf%40python.net

    A very long, detailed discussion of Parrot emphasizes security
    issues for a parrot daemon and language-agnosticism:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3dccfcbb%240%24200%24edfadb0f%40dread11.news.tele.dk

    Donnal Walter asks a question about exactly what the PSF license
    means for non-PSF organizations:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=918bc22f.0211092028.59e3a4ad%40posting.google.com

    Jon Ribbens asks a question about how to create large portable
    constants in light of PEP 237 and the fact that hex/oct constants
    greater than sys.maxint will return positive, not negative values,
    in Python 2.4 and later:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=s0qeqa.no3.ln%40beastie.ix.netcom.com

Software
    Per Gummedal announces the port of Python 2.2.2 to AS/400:
        http://home.no.net/pgummeda/

    SalStat is a rapid statistics package for the analysis of
    scientific package, using Python wxPython:
        http://salstat.sunsite.dk/

    The ctypes module supports the creation and manipulation of C data
    types in Python. These can then be passed to C functions loaded
    from dynamic link libraries.
        http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/ctypes.html

    eyeD3 is a Python module that reads both version 1 and version 2
    ID3 tags and MP3 headers:
        http://freshmeat.net/projects/eyed3/?topic_id=120%2C912

    Slideshow is a portable SDL-based presentation framework:
        http://www.alobbs.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=slideshow&file=index

Resources
    Volume 3 of the Python Journal is available, concentrating on
    "practical tasks":  map display, text filtering, Python embedding,
    and dynamic Web site generation:
        http://pythonjournal.cognizor.com/

    Patrick O'Brien has written an article titled "Python persistence
    management":
        http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pypers.html

    Richard Jones proposes PEP 301, detailing some extensions to the
    Distutils packaging system:
        http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0301.html


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

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://starship.python.net/crew/mwh/summaries/
        http://www.amk.ca/python/dev

    The Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collect 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 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

    Links2Go is a new semi-automated link collection; it's impressive
    what AI can generate
        http://www.links2go.com/search?search=python

    Tenth International Python Conference 
        http://www.python10.org            

    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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(approximately), ask <claird@phaseit.net> to 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.