Python-URL! – Weekly Python News and Links (January 13)

QOTW:  "Explicit is better than implicit ... especially if you have a
syntax-colouring text editor which highlights 'self' and 'this' ;)"
Tim Delaney

"They added object orientation to Perl?"  Nick Vargish

"I had a manager once who insisted that strict.pm [as in `use strict'
from Perl] was useless 'because it breaks all my programs.'"  Andrew Lee


Announcements
    Guido van Rossum warns of security problems found in rexec and
    Bastion starting with version 2.2; they will be disabled in the
    next 2.3 alpha release and users are actively discouraged from
    using them immediately:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1041875417.12807.clpa-moderators%40python.org


Discussion
    David Bolen exemplifies use of calldll for the specific problem
    of reporting memory usage.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=u8yxydzw1.fsf%40fitlinxx.com

    A question about old-style errors involving Unicode strings
    instead of normal strings leads to a discussion about general
    "widening" issues (and the deprecation of raising strings):
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3e1d5c7b%241%40news.fhg.de

    Martin v. Loewis answers the question of when .pth files are
    needed:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=avh9ql%245lk%2406%241%40news.t-online.com

    Mininal Python is a forming discussion group intent on creating a
    version of Python with a very small C core and most of the rest
    reimplemented in Python itself, including parts of the Python VM,
    suggesting possibilities for runtime/JIT optimization and
    implementations in restricted environments:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=mailman.1042398202.16333.python-list%40python.org
        http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/pypy-dev

    Is it okay to use something other than `self' for the name of the
    self method argument?  See what Pythonistas think:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3E210503.9A4F4AC8%40alcyone.com


Software
    zxSet and zxDateTime are Java/Jython implementations of the
    popular CPython sets (in the upcoming 2.3 release) and DateTime
    modules:
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/zxpy/

    Strip-o-Gram, an HTML conversion library, reaches 1.4 and includes
    Zope support:
        http://www.zope.org/Members/chrisw/StripOGram

    WebWare is a Python-oriented suite of software components for
    developing Web-based applications:
        http://webware.sourceforge.net/

    PAGE, at version 2.2b, is an automatic GUI generator for Python,
    which bears a resemblance to Visual Basic:
        http://page.sourceforge.net/

    Oak DNS Server is a Domain Name Server written in pure Python:
        http://www.digitallumber.com/oak

    PyGeo is a dynamic geometry laboratory requiring VPython:
        http://home.netcom.com/~ajs/    

    Zope reaches 2.6.0:
        http://www.zope.org/


Resources
    Patrick K. O'Brien has written a Python and DB2 tutorial (free
    registration required):
        https://www6.software.ibm.com/reg/devworks/dw-db2pylnx-i?S_TACT=102B7W91&S_CMP=DB2DD

    The Python 2.3 alpha development documentation has been updated
    again, including the updated optparse module documentation:
        http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/

    Holger Krekel, putting his money where is mouth is, implements a
    prototype "indendent execution protocol" for Python 2.2.2,
    allowing in effect implicit try-except-else-finally clauses around
    arbitrary blocks by constructing managing objects:
        http://codespeak.net/moin/moin.cgi/IndentedExecution

    Uche Ogbuji writes "Generating DOM Magic" for O'Reilly's xml.com,
    covering using generators in conjunction with XML DOM processing:
        http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/01/08/py-xml.html

    Michele Simionato has written an article outlining the new Python
    2.3 method resolution order (MRO):
        http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/mro.html


Meetings and Calls For Papers
    Wesley Shun teaches a Python course in the Bay Area.
        http://artemis.ucsc-extension.edu/~wesc/013e44cd.htm

    The Sydney, Australia Python Interest Group is holding its
    January meeting a week early, on January 13 at 7:00 pm at the
    University of Technology Sydney:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1041873820.14410.clpa-moderators%40python.org

    The deadline for PyCon 2003 is looming; the submission deadline
    is January 2003, the final versions are due March 10:
        http://www.python.org/pycon/cfp.html

    Alan Runyan is the speaker of the month in the Third Austin Python
    Users Group Meeting:
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1042235104.18359.clpa-moderators%40python.org


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

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/
    Partial archives are at
        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 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/.
    [email protected] and [email protected]
    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

    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.*

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