Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (May 22)

[Peter Otten]

QOTW: "It's hard to make a mistake by having too many short and simple
functions. And much too easy to make them when you have too few ;-)"
- Thomas Bartkus

"Argh, the following is valid Python syntax: assert a is not b - XXX
in-progress"
- Armin Rigo (found on Michael Hudson's blog)
A GREAT Python event is taking place right now:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/NeedForSpeed/

Python does not encourage one-liners, but when they work they are often
beautiful and efficient, like this one for counting distinct lines in a
file.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....2003a1a24205d3

Starting with Python 2.4 you may have to explicitly mask away the bits
that used to fall off the edge of the world in previous versions.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....bf8ec0c3?tvc=1

Paul Cannon is working on Noodle, a lisp flavour targeting Python bytecode.
http://noodler.blogspot.com/2006/05/release.html

Modules lack a __getattr__ method. However, that is not a limitation in
practice:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....e0c33b843a8a64

Mike Foord and John J. Lee have teamed to improve the "Missing urllib2
Manual" slated to become an official Howto.
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/w..._20.shtml#e335

When Python balks at printing non-ascii characters to stdout, the shell
is likely to be the culprit, as Serge Orlov and others work out.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....f3e87288?tvc=1

Dave Kuhlman has updated his FAQ concerning XML handling with Python.
http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman/pyxmlfaq.html

Among the folks Bruce Eckel has interviewed are Guido van Rossum
and Jim Fulton.
http://www.mindviewinc.com/mediacast...iews/Index.php

Still undecided whether you need "wxPython in Action", the new book
written by Noel Rappin and Robin Dunn (the latter also the main developer
of the wxPython GUI framework)? Get a feel for what to expect from this
excerpt:
http://www.pythonthreads.com/article...on-part-1.html

If you want to access only part of a pickle file cPickle has a
fast-forward that avoids loading stuff you are not interested in.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....5b2e987563422a
================================================== ======================
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.python.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newsgroup weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...ython.announce

Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..."
Updates appear more-than-weekly:
http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html

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/

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

Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python
hyperlinks retains a few gems.
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://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0042/

The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com.
ed****@pythonjournal.com and ed****@pythonjournal.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.*

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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
There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments
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-- The Python-URL! Team--

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[Andy Salnikov]

"Peter Otten" <py********@phaseit.net> wrote in message
news:e4**********@lairds.us...

QOTW: "It's hard to make a mistake by having too many short and simple
functions. And much too easy to make them when you have too few ;-)"
- Thomas Bartkus

And of course there is a mathematical proof of that provided
somewhere, isn't it? :)

"Too many" is always opposite to "hard to make a mistake", at least
in my mind.

Andy.

[Peter Otten]

Andy Salnikov wrote:

QOTW: "It's hard to make a mistake by having too many short and simple
functions. And much too easy to make them when you have too few ;-)"
- Thomas Bartkus

And of course there is a mathematical proof of that provided
somewhere, isn't it? :)

If there were a proof I wouldn't have picked it as the QOTW. All the
interesting stuff is what could be wrong but isn't :)

Peter

[Ben Finney]

"Andy Salnikov" <a_********@yahoo.com> writes:

"Peter Otten" <py********@phaseit.net> wrote in message
news:e4**********@lairds.us...

QOTW: "It's hard to make a mistake by having too many short and simple
functions. And much too easy to make them when you have too few ;-)"
- Thomas Bartkus

And of course there is a mathematical proof of that provided
somewhere, isn't it? :)

"Too many" is always opposite to "hard to make a mistake", at least
in my mind.

I parsed the assertion as:

(It's hard to
(make a mistake
(by having
(too many
(short and simple)
functions))))

In other words, it's not that he's saying "having too many short and
simple functions" is difficult, nor that it's not a mistake; he's
saying that it's difficult to get into a situation where that is the
cause of one's mistake.

--
\ "I got an answering machine for my phone. Now when someone |
`\ calls me up and I'm not home, they get a recording of a busy |
_o__) signal." -- Steven Wright |
Ben Finney

[Peter Otten]

Ben Finney wrote:

"Andy Salnikov" <a_********@yahoo.com> writes:

"Too many" is always opposite to "hard to make a mistake", at least
in my mind.

I parsed the assertion as:

(It's hard to
(make a mistake
(by having
(too many
(short and simple)
functions))))

In other words, it's not that he's saying "having too many short and
simple functions" is difficult, nor that it's not a mistake; he's
saying that it's difficult to get into a situation where that is the
cause of one's mistake.

I completely agree -- and incidentally you helped me understand Andy's
statement. Thanks.

Peter