From: David Ascher <da@ski.org>
Subject: README: Python-URL! - the weekly guide to Python resources (Aug 30)
Date: 30 Aug 1999 04:36:01 -0500

Highly biased highlights from the O'Reilly conference:

    Tom Christiansen joins Guido and a few other Pythonistas for beer
    and random trivia (does || or && bind tighter in C?). A jovial
    time was had by all, and nothing caught on fire.

    There were more folks looking for Python programmers than Python
    programmers looking for a job!  The future's so bright, we gotta
    wear shades.

    eGroups CTO Scott Hassan says that they pump 30 million emails a
    day with Python without breaking a sweat, and expect to scale up
    to 200-300 million personalized emails per day.  Big numbers for a
    'slow' language!

    When Adam Feuer was asked whether he was having fun, he replied:
    "I'm having a blast -- I've been using Python for six months, and
    I feel like I'm having an affair with the language!"

   http://www.linuxslides.com/
   http://www.vwtapes.com/cgi-local/vwcart.pl?page=/oreilly/99/python.html
   
Having the old fogies out of the way spurred activity on the
newsgroup:

    One old fogie remained: Fredrik Lundh "parses arbitrary python
    expressions" he doesn't trust
        http://x32.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=506369193 and Bernhard Herzog
    shows how to sneak in statements
        http://x29.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=506541895

    Arpad Kiss provides one minimal example of how COM can
    be useful by retrieving document properties into a Py-
    thon process
	http://x46.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=508285498

    David Niergarth "unmangles" a Win* "long name", but
    only with difficulty.  No better solutions appear
	http://x27.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=510820469

    Colin J Williams describes Hans Nowak's page of
    "snippets" as "clean and well-organized"
	http://www.hvision.nl/~ivnowa/snippets/

    Karl Putland retrieves a collection through COM
	http://x24.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=505637404

    Charles G Waldman carefully illuminates several alternative
    ways to shuffle cards
	http://x38.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=513914923
    Nihilist Tim Peters, once again misremembering which is the
    "dismal science", counters that "even the best possible al-
    gorithm ... is terrible"
	http://x37.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=514317775
    Other poetry from the same thread:  Mersenne Twister, tears-
    in-the-rain, Chi-squares, /dev/random

    People seem to argue a lot about nothing, specifically:
    The necessesity of pass statements in empty blocks, and whether
    returning None is a trap.  Some of the more useful posts:
        http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=516955938
        http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=518128657

    More usefully, some etymological truths are laid bare,
    specifically regarding nautical techniques thanks to Fredrik
    Henbjork the fisherman
        http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=515457138
    and Tim Peters and Kent Polk argue about who the real mathematical
    geniuses are
        http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=518132556

    In a blast from the past, what used to be Ted Nelson's Xanadu is
    bared to all, and some might be surprised to know what languages
    it's written in: 
        http://www.udanax.com/

=========================================================================
Everything you want is probably one or two clicks away in these pages:

      Python.org's Python Language Website is the center of Pythonia
          http://www.python.org

      Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group
          mailing lists http://www.python.org/sigs/

      Python Consortium emerges as an independent nexus of activity
          http://www.python.org/consortium

      Python To-Do List anticipates some of Python's future direction
          http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/todo.py

      Python Journal is at work on its second issue
          http://www.pythonjournal.com

      Links2Go is a new semi-automated link collection; it's impressive
      what AI can generate
          http://www.links2go.com/search?search=python

    Archive probing trick of the trade:
        http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=&DBS=2&ST=PS&defaultOp=AND&LNG=ALL&format=threaded&showsort=date&maxhits=100&groups=comp.lang.python


Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
  http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html
or
  http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=~g%20comp.lang.python%20Python-URL%21


Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
  http://www.egroups.com/list/python-url-leads/

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-- The Python-URL! Team--
-- 

Cameron Laird           http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
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