Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Nov 11)

Mon Nov 11 17:49:24 EST 2002

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 at pythonjournal.com and editor at 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 at phaseit.net> should get through.

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-- The Python-URL! Team--

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