From: Quinn Dunkan <quinn@retch.ugcs.caltech.edu> To: Dr.Dobb's.Python-URL.distribution@starbase.neosoft.com Subject: Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Aug 6) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 14:02:13 -0500 (CDT) News: Pythonia loses a great man, Frank Willison: http://www.oreilly.com/news/frank_0701.html Laura Lewin reports on OSCON 2001: http://python.oreilly.com/news/pythondispatch_0701.html python-dev thrashes out such adult subjects as XML-RPC, SOAP, WebDAV, Unicode, ... http://www.kuchling.com/python/dev/2001-07-2.html A Blast from the past: The SpecTcl GUI builder receives bug fixes after a three year hiatus. The amazing thing about SpecTcl is that it supports the generation of not only Tcl/Tk code but also Python, Perl and Ruby. See the announcement in comp.lang.tcl.announce, and the SpecTcl web page: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=a5a3af4ee11811c5,1 http://spectcl.sourceforge.net Language use: Sheila King wants to know how to create her own exceptions and how the standard exceptions module works. Guido agrees that the process is underdocumented: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=f7eb260855462b01 Tim Peters describes a declarative approach to highly stateful interactions: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=5d48c07e920090cb,10&start=8 Steve Holden posts code to query databases and cache the results: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=b17d869a6fb8078c Steve Majewski observes that "nested generators [are] the python equivalent of unix pipe cmds" (as the Haskell people are fond of observing about their lazy lists) and posts useful higher-order generator functions: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=83ff3eda8092576b Random philosophy: Tim Daneliuk posts an essay on where python fits in the language world (and how World Domination is imminent): http://groups.google.com/groups?th=78329468eb992b31,9 Language evolution: Guido solicits feedback on the new type/class unification features: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=a8dc15aab8832a6b,68&start=0 Later in the thread, the topic of how to spell the first argument of a class method (which will be a class, not an instance of a class) arises: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=a8dc15aab8832a6b,68&start=15 ... and of course everyone has their own ideas: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=a8dc15aab8832a6b,68&start=53 `x in type' is suggested as a way to write `isinstance(x, type)'. Guido is initially favorable but after a few more posts it doesn't seem like such a great idea after all: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=c6b6e3a1d89f66fe,84&start=20 Along the way, Tim demonstrates a pretty twisted way to search nested tuples: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=c6b6e3a1d89f66fe,84&start=78 A discussion of generators and infinite sequences provokes ideas for various extensions to the list comprehension: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=416451df1c2964fd,15&start=0 http://groups.google.com/groups?th=f4b144c05c1c12c2,26&start=0 The integer division flamewar seems to have settled down for the moment. It seems likely that the new behaviour (int / int -> float) will be in the __future__ of 2.2 and become the default in a few years at version 3. ======================================================================== Everything 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 daily python url http://www.pythonware.com/daily comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be sure to scan this newly-revitalized newsgroup at least weekly. http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python.announce Michael Hudson continues Andrew Kuchling's marvelous tradition of summarizing action on the python-dev mailing list once every other week. http://starship.python.net/crew/mwh/summaries/ http://www.amk.ca/python/dev The Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collect 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 Software Foundation has replaced the Python Consortium as an independent nexus of activity http://www.python.org/psf/ Cetus does much of the same http://www.cetus-links.de/oo_python.html Python FAQTS http://python.faqts.com/ 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 tricks of the trade: http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python&num=100 http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=site%3Dgroups%26group%3Dcomp.lang.python.* Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here: http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html or http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome. [http://www.egroups.com/list/python-url-leads/ is hibernating. Just e-mail us ideas directly.] To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning, ask <claird@neosoft.com> 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.