Zaurus and Python, a good combination

[Alex Martelli]

Ron Stephens wrote:

> Thanks, Gerhard, Dave, David, Paul, and others....so now I have infinite
> incentive to study Boudewijn Rempt's book, "GUI Programming with Python
> using the QT Toolkit".

It's a good book!  However:

> I absolutely promise myself , here and now, to read and think about
> nothing else (except during working hours of course, wink wink ;-)))
> for my whole trip upcoming. I leave home on Tuesday and am, off -and on,
> on the road for three weeks. I should be able to absorb the book in
> those three weeks.

...unless you have a laptop with PyQt (and all the other components it
needs -- Python, Qt, etc:-) and the code for the book's examples along
with you, I suspect you won't be getting as much as you could out of
your study.  Experimenting with all the concepts as they're presented
is really helpful, PyQt is an excellent environment for this, and the
book strongly oriented to such hands-on work.

> Alex, it really is a good machine. I sure hope you are able to get one
> soon. I think it is dumb for the Sharp folks to be so anal-retentive
> about their marekting efforts. Thye should sell as many as they can,
> whenever and wherever they can.

...particularly, I should think, regarding sales that may (one hopes)
have positive appeal on the product's attractiveness to other buyers
down the road.  For a computer, this means that selling a unit to a
developer (particularly one who feels some enthusiasm about the
machine) has high importance -- the machine's attractiveness to most
potential buyers depends strictly on the amount, quality and variety
of applications available for it, and getting the machine into the
hands of enthusiastic developers is one way to help on this score.

Moreover, Sharp seems to get it at some level -- they've long had a
"developers' program" going, with discounts etc.  BUT -- limited
to developers living in country A, B, or C; developers living in
countries D, E, &c, are apparently of no interest to Sharp.  Great
for those who think programming SHOULD be segregated by country,
which each developer narrowly focusing on his or her national
language and culture, no doubt.  I suspect you can all guess how
this attitude strikes me without me having to pour our a few zillion
well-chosen expletives, yes?


Alex