Python Forum

>From technical point of view, I could not understand the the reasoning behind using Java in major companies. Sure that Python, is used in some, but still Java is considered as a sure-job language. After being a python programmer for long time, I consider it painful to learn/use Java now (well, like many I will be forced to do that in my...

I've just read an article "Building Robust System" by Gerald Jay Sussman. The article is here: http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/symbolic/spring07/readings/robust-systems.pdf In it there is a footprint which says: "Indeed, one often hears arguments against building exibility into an engineered sys- tem. For example, in the philosophy of...

This is probably a FAQ, but I dare to ask it nevertheless since I haven't found a satisfying answer yet: Why isn't there an "ordered dictionary" class at least in the standard list? Time and again I am missing that feature. Maybe there is something wrong with my programming style, but I rather think it is generally useful. I fully agree...

The following url points to an article written by Damian Conway entitled "Ten Essential Development Practices": http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2005/07/14/bestpractices.html Althought the article has Perl as a focus, I thought that some of the general points made might be of interest to the Python community. It would certainly be interesting to...

What's better about Ruby than Python? I'm sure there's something. What is it? This is not a troll. I'm language shopping and I want people's answers. I don't know beans about Ruby or have any preconceived ideas about it. I have noticed, however, that every programmer I talk to who's aware of Python is also talking about Ruby. So it...

This seems like it ought to work, according to the description of reduce(), but it doesn't. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? Python 2.3.2 (#1, Oct 20 2003, 01:04:35) on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> d1 = {'a':1} >>> d2 = {'b':2} >>> d3 = {'c':3}

Python, Lambda, and Guido van Rossum Xah Lee, 2006-05-05 In this post, i'd like to deconstruct one of Guido's recent blog about lambda in Python. In Guido's blog written in 2006-02-10 at http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=147358

Hi everyone, I'm a big Python fan who used to be involved semi regularly in comp.lang.python (lots of lurking, occasional posting) but kind of trailed off a bit. I just wrote a frustration inspired rant on my blog, and I thought it was relevant enough as a wider issue to the Python community to post here for your discussion and...

Sorry for the numpty question ... How do you find the reference name of an object? So if i have this bob = modulename.objectname() how do i find that the name is 'bob'

In the context of LATEX, some Pythonista asked what the big successes of Lisp were. I think there were at least three *big* successes. a. orbitz.com web site uses Lisp for algorithms, etc. b. Yahoo store was originally written in Lisp. c. Emacs The issues with these will probably come up, so I might as well mention them myself (which...

http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html ] The Modernization of Emacs ---------------------------------------- THE PROBLEM Emacs is a great editor. It is perhaps the most powerful and most versatile text editor. And, besides text editing, it also serves as a

Jargons of Info Tech industry (A Love of Jargons) Xah Lee, 2002 Feb People in the computing field like to spur the use of spurious jargons. The less educated they are, the more they like extraneous jargons, such as in the Unix & Perl community. Unlike mathematicians, where in mathematics there are no fewer jargons but each and every...

PEP 1 specifies that PEP authors need to collect feedback from the community. As the author of PEP 3131, I'd like to encourage comments to the PEP included below, either here (comp.lang.python), or to python-3000@python.org In summary, this PEP proposes to allow non-ASCII letters as identifiers in Python. If the PEP is accepted, the...

THE GOOD: 1. pickle 2. simplicity and uniformity 3. big library (bigger would be even better) THE BAD:

Microsoft Hatred, FAQ Xah Lee, 20020518 Question: U.S. Judges are not morons, and quite a few others are not morons. They find MS guilty, so it must be true. Answer: so did the German population thought Jews are morons by heritage, to the point that Jews should be exterminated from earth. Apparently, the entire German population cannot...

in March, i posted a essay “What is Expressiveness in a Computer Language�, archived at: http://xahlee.org/perl-python/what_is_expresiveness.html I was informed then that there is a academic paper written on this subject. On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages, by Matthias Felleisen, 1990....

I think everyone who used Python will agree that its syntax is the best thing going for it. It is very readable and easy for everyone to learn. But, Python does not a have very good macro capabilities, unfortunately. I'd like to know if it may be possible to add a powerful macro system to Python, while keeping its amazing syntax, and if it...

How do you compare Python to Lisp? What specific advantages do you think that one has over the other? Note I'm not a Python person and I have no axes to grind here. This is just a question for my general education. Mark