Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jul 3)

Emile van Sebille emile at fcfw.fenx.com
Tue Jul 3 18:34:56 EDT 2001


Pythonic Quote of the Week...
    Quite granted that nobody is forced to use a feature.  But when
    a language becomes too featureful, people start programming in
    the subdialect they like best, later creating difficulties to
    other wanting to read their programs, who might like other parts
    better.

    One of the reason behind Python legibility success, is that
    there is almost only one way to do one thing (to contrast with
    Perl, say).  We are progressively sliding away of this virtue. 
    The danger is real.
                                  François Pinard
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993966362.10675.python-list@python.org

    Bernhard Rieter wonders about second system syndrome resulting from
    the syntactic additions to recent Python releases.  The discussion
    weaves in and out of topics, reviewing how things get done, who does
    what, and what's needed next.  It turns out there's no magic here:
    people work and volunteer in their areas of interest.  Guido tells us
    we should all do what we do best: the core PythonLabs team should
    work on the language, and the community the Libraries.  Elsewhere
    it's noted that PythonLabs needs to support library modules accepted
    to the core distribution, sometimes making the core team reluctant to
    accept modules not within their areas of expertise.  It appears the
    next step is to work on PEP-0002 so guidelines can be worked out as
    to which modules will be in the core, and which should be in third
    party repositories such as the Vaults or ActiveState's planned
    repository.  See the complete thread starting at
        http://groups.google.com/groups?th=b4a14dbfb3560d93,64&ic=1
    ... Tim Peters disagrees with Bernhard's particulars, but warns that
    some PEPs may be pointing that way
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993788804.16625.python-list@python.org
    ... while also saying the rate of change will slow down, as the backlog
    dwindles.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993880666.24740.python-list@python.org

    Early registration for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention Ends
    Today.  The convention runs July 23-27, 2001 in San Diego, CA.  Many
    Python people are scheduled, including David Ascher, David Beazley,
    Mark Hammond and Guido van Rossum.  Check out the Python session
    information at
        http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/pub/w/os2001/sessions_python.html
    ... the Bird of a Feather Sessions will feature Wesley Chun and Paul Prescod
        http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/pub/w/os2001/bofs.html
    ... tutorials will be conducted by Aaron Watters, Aahz, Eric Jones and Wesley Chun.
        http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/pub/10/python_tutorials.html
    ... and many additional Python related topics covered
        http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/pub/w/os2001/speakers.html

    Richard Snow calls for testers and developers to help advance his
    school library system.  See the project home page or his posting for
    more information.
        http://richardsnow.bizland.com/opendev/id5.html
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:3B3601BE.3C84E49A@earthlink.net

    Martijn Faasen answers the question "What's the concept/logic behind
    object-orientation?" in a succinct posting.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:9h4rto$fmc$1@newshost.accu.uu.nl

    Create screen savers for windows using Python!  Chris Liechti
    releases a win32 screen saver that includes embedded python and shows
    how you can write your own version of flying toasters.  I did a
    company wide screen-saver community-access-channel type project last
    year that I'll rewrite some day using this.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:Xns90D014E757768cliechtimailsch@62.2.32.50

    Milan Zamazal has contributed Python 2.1 documentation in GNU info
    format.  Thanks to Fred Drake for pointing this out.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993842806.3648.python-list@python.org

    Guido reveals that threads of democracy occasionally work loose in
    the fabric of the BDFL cloak.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:cp7kxvlake.fsf@cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com

    OpenDocs put up the first parts of Boudewijn Rempt's Graphical
    Programming with Python: QT Edition. The book is under development
    and feedback is asked for.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993884385.26860.python-list@python.org

    Magnus Lie Hetland hopes to revive Greg Ewing's Python GUI API as a
    new project named anygui, which will function in a manner similar to
    anydbm in that it will look for existing backends, and use what is
    available.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:9hg7fg$dmg$1@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no

    Paul Prescod and the team at ActiveState push the penny ahead with
    the starting of the repository of our dreams.  This is also the
    topic of his BOF in San Diego later this month.  The combined
    projects show a lot of promise, and are even now quite useful.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993856425.27427.python-list@python.org

    Jussi Jumppanen announces the availability of CVS integration for
    ZeusEdit, a windows based programmer's source code editor.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:3B3BB20B.7514@zeusedit.com

    Neal Norwitz introduces a new version of PyChecker, a tool for
    finding common bugs in python source code.  It finds problems that
    are typically caught by a compiler for less dynamic languages, like
    C and C++.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993642589.9402.python-list@python.org

    Pete Shinners releases Pygame 1.1 for Python Game Development. 
    There are currently several released open source games and
    applications built with Pygame.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:OIVZ6.41208$c7.7431279@typhoon.we.rr.com

    Cayce Ullman tells us that SOAP.py is updated now to version 0.9.7
    and moves to sourceforge.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993726240.19493.clpa-moderators@python.org

    Alex Martelli provides a clue and Dirck Blaskey follows up, showing
    how to call a module.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:6c8b7eb9.0106250030.51be556d@posting.google.com

    Robin Becker finds the PMW "loader" slows down imports, and suggests
    a solution for introspective Tk apps.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:4e4PQKAuqKO7EwDj@jessikat.demon.co.uk

    Frederik Lundh shows how to un-accent unicode strings for use in
    searches and filters.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:7M0_6.4105$e5.767781@newsb.telia.net

    Tim Peters leads us safely through the minefield of threads and generators.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993456458.22004.python-list@python.org

    Guido presents a PEP to strip buggy un-used portions of xrange from the system
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:mailman.993578546.30453.python-list@python.org
    ... which leads Tim Peters and James Logajan to go soul searching.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&q=msgid:3B39480C.F4808C1F@Lugoj.Com


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

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  

    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

    Michael Hudson continues Andrew Kuchling's marvelous tradition
    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.de/oo_python.html

    Python FAQTS
        http://python.faqts.com/

    Python To-Do List anticipates some of Python's future direction
        http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/todo.py

    Python Journal is at work on its second issue
        http://www.pythonjournal.com

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

    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://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html
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.
[http://www.egroups.com/list/python-url-leads/ is hibernating.  Just
e-mail us ideas directly.]

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning,
ask <claird at neosoft.com> 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.
-- 

Cameron Laird <claird at NeoSoft.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html



More information about the Python-list mailing list