Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (May 24)

[Simon Brunning]

QOTW: "If you're sick of answering newbie questions, and don't think you
can do so politely, for the sake of the community, DON'T! You're not that
necessary." - Joal Heagney

"Who controls the runtime also controls the language." - Kay Schluehr
Jake tells us about the \r control character, which allows one to
refresh a terminal line. Many people help him to use it from Python,
and Fredrik warns him that it might well not work from an IDE:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...0cffbb6eb03cc4

John Reese asks whether he needs to explicitly close file objects,
or whether reference counting will take care of it for him. Martin
v. Löwis shows a scenario that demonstrates that ref counting won't
always close files when you think it will:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...ba2d6efd271707

Simon Percivall and Jp Calderone show Michael Chermside how to
process subprocess module output a line at a time:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...6854ec10c6d508

WSGI Explorations with Python - Mike Orr investigates WSGI and Paste:
http://rex.kicks-ass.net/python/wsgi-explorations.html

Len, an "old time Cobol programmer", asks for some advice on storing data:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...0623a77b22c456

Dustin is refactoring some unpythonic code that uses a very nasty
import mechanism, but now he's having trouble with circular imports:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...ae5075b9973a2b

A Matter Of Questions - Ben Last tells us how he's using Python for
data cleansing, amongst other things, while building a Playstation
Music Quiz:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/benlast/24719.html

William Park wants to test how similar two strings are. This is
more complicated than it sounds...
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...a08f075d05eb48

Create an ODBC data source in the fly with Python:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Coo.../Recipe/414879

Paul Rubin investigates how the super() function works with
multiple inheritance. A number of people clear things up for him.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...cdcc73f8747091

Notable releases:
pysqlite 2.0.2
http://pysqlite.org/
PyPy 0.6 (!)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...4a74dfb90c8bf4
=============== =============== =============== =============== ============
Everything Python-related 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
marvelous 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.

For far, FAR more Python reading than any one mind should
absorb, much of it quite interesting, several pages index
much of the universe of Pybloggers.
http://lowlife.jp/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/P...grammersWeblog
http://www.planetpython.org/
http://mechanicalcat.net/pyblagg.html

comp.lang.pytho n.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newsgroup weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...ython.announce

Steve Bethard, Tim Lesher, and Tony Meyer continue the marvelous
tradition early borne by Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson and Brett
Cannon of intelligently summarizing action on the python-dev mailing
list once every other week.
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/

The Python Package Index catalogues packages.
http://www.python.org/pypi/

The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references
to all sorts of 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 Business Forum "further[s] the interests of companies
that base their business on ... Python."
http://www.python-in-business.org

Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line
match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're
subject with a vision of what the language makes practical.
http://www.pythonology.com/success

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python
Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official
responsibility for Python's development and maintenance.
http://www.python.org/psf/
Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation.
http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html

Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches.
http://www.google.com/groups?as_usub...python%20patch

Cetus collects Python hyperlinks.
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html

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

The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and
interesting recipes.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python

Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are
http://www.python.org/channews.rdf
http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi
http://python.de/backend.php
For more, see
http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?...ShowStatus=all
The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a
SourceForge reincarnation.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid...70&func=browse
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0042.html

The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.c ognizor.com.
ed****@pythonjo urnal.com and ed****@pythonjo urnal.cognizor. com
welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding
of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work.

del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/python

*Py: the Journal of the Python Language*
http://www.pyzine.com

Archive probing tricks of the trade:
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...python&num=100
http://groups.google.com/groups?meta....lang.python.*

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://www.ddj.com/topics/pythonurl/ (requires subscription)
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups...t=0&scoring=d&
http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant)
or
http://groups.google.c om/groups?oi=djq&a s_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup= comp.lang.pytho n
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <Py********@pha seit.net> should get through.

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(approximately) , ask <cl****@phaseit .net> 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.

[Rocco Moretti]

Simon Brunning wrote:

QOTW: "If you're sick of answering newbie questions, and don't think you
can do so politely, for the sake of the community, DON'T! You're not that
necessary." - Joal Heagney

Taken out of context, Joal's comments might seem a bit rude and abrasive
- I don't think they were meant that way. People really should look at
the context of the quote - it'a actually a very constructive suggestion.

(If the direct link works:)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...30925dcecb6bdb

(If not, go to http://groups.google.com and search "Joal Heagney
politely group:comp.lang .python" Click on the "Python Polymorphism" thread.)

[Cameron Laird]

In article <d6**********@n ews.doit.wisc.e du>,
Rocco Moretti <ro**********@h otpop.com> wrote:

Simon Brunning wrote:

QOTW: "If you're sick of answering newbie questions, and don't think you
can do so politely, for the sake of the community, DON'T! You're not that
necessary." - Joal Heagney

Taken out of context, Joal's comments might seem a bit rude and abrasive
- I don't think they were meant that way. People really should look at
the context of the quote - it'a actually a very constructive suggestion.

(If the direct link works:)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...30925dcecb6bdb

[Simon Brunning]

On 5/24/05, Cameron Laird <cl****@lairds. us> wrote:

General principle: if in doubt about the significance of an item in
"Python-URL!", assume that it's intended in a constructive way.

I find that if you make the same assumption about c.l.py in general,
you are seldom wrong. That's a big part of the reason that I like it
here.

--
Cheers,
Simon B,
si***@brunningo nline.net,
http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/

[Steven Bethard]

Simon Brunning wrote:

On 5/24/05, Cameron Laird <cl****@lairds. us> wrote:

General principle: if in doubt about the significance of an item in
"Python-URL!", assume that it's intended in a constructive way.

I find that if you make the same assumption about c.l.py in general,
you are seldom wrong.

+1 QOTW. ;)

STeVe