From carl at personnelware.com  Thu Oct  8 15:49:27 2009
From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten)
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 08:49:27 -0500
Subject: [python-advocacy] py-in-the-sci blog post
Message-ID: <549053140910080649n6ff0bd85kc87fe6d91fa7f823@mail.gmail.com>

This seemed like a nice collection of Python related Scientific
computing infos. or something worth passing on:
http://fossee.in/blog/py-in-the-sci  - very catchy title :)

the links make a nice summary:

IPython  http://ipython.scipy.org
Sage  http://www.sagemath.org
Cython http://cython.org
NumPy http://numpy.scipy.org
SciPy.in http://scipy.in
SciPy http://www.scipy.org
matplotlib http://matplotlib.sf.net
Enthought Tool Suite (ETS) http://code.enthought.com
Traits http://code.enthought.com/projects/traits/
inversion of control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_of_control
tutorial http://code.enthought.com/projects/traits/docs/html/tutorials/traits_ui_scientific_app.html
Envisage http://code.enthought.com/projects/envisage/
Mayavi  http://code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi
automatic script recording
http://www.archive.org/details/scipy09_day2_05-Prabhu_Ramachandran
Chaco http://code.enthought.com/projects/chaco/


I had fun making that list:

import urllib2
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup
page = urllib2.urlopen("http://fossee.in/blog/py-in-the-sci")
soup = BeautifulSoup(page)
for l in soup.findAll('a'):
    href=dict(l.attrs)['href']
    if href.startswith('http'):
        print l.contents[0],href


-- 
Carl K

From bradallen137 at gmail.com  Thu Oct 29 19:47:49 2009
From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:47:49 -0500
Subject: [python-advocacy] anti-python sponsored ad on Google
Message-ID: <4957f1ef0910291147k4ac4f7abl2b254e9d2d277100@mail.gmail.com>

Several times while working in gmail's web UI I've seen a sponsored
link running across the top of the page, just above the buttons, with
the following text:

    No Python -  http://bitcheese.net/wiki/nopython - Yes, python
syntax is totally broken. Why? Learn now!    Sponsored Link

I took a screenshot in case anyone is interested.

'Sponsored Link' implies someone paid money to show this ad...weird.
It doesn't look like a professional site and pretty much debunks
itself through vulgarity and ignorance.

From broadus.jones at gmail.com  Thu Oct 29 20:16:43 2009
From: broadus.jones at gmail.com (Broadus Jones)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:16:43 -0500
Subject: [python-advocacy] anti-python sponsored ad on Google
In-Reply-To: <4957f1ef0910291147k4ac4f7abl2b254e9d2d277100@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4957f1ef0910291147k4ac4f7abl2b254e9d2d277100@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c048021a0910291216w51139ccdw9e08e2f9538ff150@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

I looked at the site.  Indeed, the ad and site are difficult to
understand what the owner is promoting.  The individual dislikes
python, git, and several other products.  I could not tell what he
actually likes, though.  He will not have much impact on python.


On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Brad Allen <bradallen137 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Several times while working in gmail's web UI I've seen a sponsored
> link running across the top of the page, just above the buttons, with
> the following text:
>
> ? ?No Python - ?http://bitcheese.net/wiki/nopython - Yes, python
> syntax is totally broken. Why? Learn now! ? ?Sponsored Link
>
> I took a screenshot in case anyone is interested.
>
> 'Sponsored Link' implies someone paid money to show this ad...weird.
> It doesn't look like a professional site and pretty much debunks
> itself through vulgarity and ignorance.
> _______________________________________________
> Advocacy mailing list
> Advocacy at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy
>

From paul at boddie.org.uk  Fri Oct 30 01:20:39 2009
From: paul at boddie.org.uk (Paul Boddie)
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:20:39 +0100
Subject: [python-advocacy] anti-python sponsored ad on Google
In-Reply-To: <c048021a0910291216w51139ccdw9e08e2f9538ff150@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4957f1ef0910291147k4ac4f7abl2b254e9d2d277100@mail.gmail.com>
	<c048021a0910291216w51139ccdw9e08e2f9538ff150@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200910300120.39546.paul@boddie.org.uk>

On Thursday 29 October 2009 20:16:43 Broadus Jones wrote:
>
> I looked at the site.  Indeed, the ad and site are difficult to
> understand what the owner is promoting.  The individual dislikes
> python, git, and several other products.  I could not tell what he
> actually likes, though.  He will not have much impact on python.

I looked at Google's cached version of the site, found by searching 
for "site:bitcheese.net Python". The author quotes someone called "Tuomo 
Valkonen" who would appear to be a less well-read version of Xah Lee (and who 
was interviewed by OSNews at one point, so we can guess at the level involved 
here), and although they touch on some "Python warts", they come across as 
some kind of Lisp advocate who wished that Ruby had been as successful as 
Python [*]. A cursory analysis of their grammar suggests that they may have 
Russian or a Slavic language as their first language (and there's a link to a 
Russian language "success story" - probably another bitter rant) at the 
bottom of the page. Not that this really means anything, of course.

Maybe some of the misconceptions could be addressed in the documentation (and 
I've heard disdain for Python's "objects are dictionaries" model from C++ 
fanatics), but Python's best advocacy comes from facing up to legitimate 
issues and ignoring the bile and the bitterness that this person obviously 
has.

Paul

[*] I did notice some sympathy in some Lisp circles for Ruby, presumably 
because Paul Graham had once said nice things about Python and this may have 
caused some people to reconsider who their role models were as a result.