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 13) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 12:31:31 -0500 (CDT) Quote of the week: 1) Customers cause problems. 2) Marketing is trying to create more customers. Therefore: 3) Marketing is evil. (Grand Edwards in comp.lang.python) Language use A find-the-permutations question turns into another c.l.py optimization war: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=18e6d8363f51b0bc,31 An apparent argument between Alex Martelli and Grant Edwards on callbacks leads to productive descriptions of the uses of lambda and currying http://groups.google.com/groups?th=80b65a6b5646b8fa Python lets you use '' or "" for strings. Some people take advantage of this by using different quotes in different situations: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=f896d358e3f6db17,12 Thomas Bellman provides an excellent explanation of the difference between tuples and lists. http://groups.google.com/groups?th=734a85d08d175637 If the __main__ module is 'a.py', 'import __main__, a' will execute the same module twice, which is unusual since python generally avoids doing that. Is this a wart? And how is it related to circular imports? http://groups.google.com/groups?th=2a5a0ff6b04b0ecd,14 Useful language David Smith wants to copy an instance without invoking __init__ on the new instance. Alex Martelli shows how you can do that by creating a dummy class, instantiating it, and reassigning its __class__ attribute: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=8d22a064dd4568b8,30&start=2 ... but Guido notes that this idiom will no longer be possible in future versions, due to type/class unification: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=8d22a064dd4568b8,30&start=9 Later, Guido reveals that he would like to make python less dynamic (only dropping "less useful" dynamic features, of course) to make it more amenable to compiler optimization: http://groups.google.com/groups?start=10&th=8d22a064dd4568b8,30&rnum=18&selm=cpzo969i4k.fsf%40cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com Iņigo Serna releases lfm 0.5, a midnight commander clone in Python: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=594eab21f71df4c8,1 M.-A. Lemburg's latest mx extension is mxTidy, which "helps you to cleanup coding errors in HTML and XML": http://groups.google.com/groups?th=b336d90307e1da99,1 ReportLab is a python module to create PDFs: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=b2560cae682b1c1f,8&start=7 Language evolution Guido envisions someday unifying python's numeric model, or at least moving to something more mathematically-oriented instead of machine-oriented. Of course, there are many ways to express the relationship between numeric types, and the mathematically minded happily debate all of them: http://groups.google.com/groups?th=6d6ad23e6ecaa33f,14 ======================================================================== 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. 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