[LWN Logo]
[LWN.net]
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.