Daily Python-URL! (from the Secret Labs)

Django 1.0 released!

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:58:00 -0000

Jacob Kaplan-Moss: Django 1.0 released! ["No, you're not hallucinating, it's really here. Around three years ago, Adrian, Simon, Wilson and I released some code to the world. Our plan was to hack quietly on it for a bit, release a solid 1.0 release, and then really get the ball rolling. Well. What happened, of course, was that an amazing community sprung up literally overnight — our IRC channel had over a hundred people in it the day after release, and it's never been that 'empty' since. /.../ Django 1.0 represents a the largest milestone in Django's development to date: a web framework that a group of perfectionists can truly be proud of. Without this amazing community, though, it would have never happened."]

Jython's Trunk Now Targets 2.5

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:48:00 -0000

Frank Wierzbicki: Jython's Trunk Now Targets 2.5 ["This post is mainly of interest to those that like to follow the development path of Jython. I just merged our development branch called 'asm' to trunk. This marks a nice milestone on the path to getting 2.5 out. So if you are interested in grabbing bleeding edge Jython out of the svn repository, the asm branch is now closed, so use trunk instead."]

"What's New in Python 2.6" is finished

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:16:00 -0000

Andrew Kuchling: "What's New in Python 2.6" is finished ["This weekend, I made a last review and editing pass over the 'What's New in Python 2.6', and have declared it finished. (Well, finished barring any corrections that get e-mailed to me.)"]

PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, Perl, Python, and Tcl Today: The State of the Scripting Universe

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:57:00 -0000

Lynn Greiner : PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, Perl, Python, and Tcl Today: The State of the Scripting Universe ["...like any other tool, dynamic languages are not necessarily interchangeable. Each has its place in a programmer's toolkit. We asked a group of luminaries in the scripting world for their perspectives on the current state of the scripting universe, and how it has changed since we last looked at the scripting language scene in 2005."]

Making XML-RPC calls from a Google App Engine application

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:09:00 -0000

Brian M. Clapper: Making XML-RPC calls from a Google App Engine application ["Google App Engine (GAE) is a useful platform on which to develop Python-based web applications. But a GAE application runs in a sandbox that prevents it from opening a socket, which makes the standard Python xmlrpclib module inoperable. Fortunately, there's a simple solution to this problem."]

Keyczar

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:01:00 -0000

Steve Weis et al: Keyczar ["Keyczar is an open source cryptographic toolkit designed to make it easier and safer for developers to use cryptography in their applications. Keyczar supports authentication and encryption with both symmetric and asymmetric keys. /.../ Cryptography is easy to get wrong. Developers can choose improper cipher modes, use obsolete algorithms, compose primitives in an unsafe manner, or fail to anticipate the need for key rotation. Keyczar abstracts some of these details by choosing safe defaults, automatically tagging outputs with key version information, and providing a simple programming interface."]

The A-Z of Programming Languages: Python

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:28:00 -0000

Naomi Hamilton: The A-Z of Programming Languages: Python ["Our series on the most popular programming languages continues as we chat to Van Rossum, the man behind Python."]

Django on Jython: It's here!

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:38:00 -0000

Leo Soto: Django on Jython: It's here! ["That's true: Django works on Jython without any special patch! For anyone interesting in trying it out, I've written the steps on the Jython wiki. For Jython, I think this is great. Not only showing that it is alive and well, but also to expose how much progress has been done in almost every front. Better unicode support, an improved parser, setuptools compatibility, performance improvements, experimental system-restarting support, datetime and decimal support on zxJDBC, are some of the features that enables this milestone. Looking back, it is a lot of impressive work of all Jython developers."]

A new Python book: "Expert Python Programming"

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:23:00 -0000

Tarek Ziadé: A new Python book: "Expert Python Programming" ["Anyway, this book is intended for developers that already have a background in Python and covers only advanced topics (see the editor details). But as I said, it explains how we develop our applications in Python so topics like continuous integration, documentation, testing, releasing, refactoring, etc. are covered. Managers will also have a good overview of how a Python project can be run and managed, using modern tools like Distributed Version Control Systems (Mercurial for instance) or Buildbot."]

Chandler 1.0!

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:34:00 -0000

Mimi Yin: Chandler 1.0! ["We are pleased to announce the release of Chandler 1.0, a “Note-to-Self Organizer” designed for personal and small-group task management and calendaring. Chandler consists of a desktop application and Chandler Hub, a free sharing service and web application. You can also download and run your own Chandler Server."]

How I Moved My Commercial Django Projects to Newforms-Admin

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:09:00 -0000

Ross Poulton: How I Moved My Commercial Django Projects to Newforms-Admin ["In this post I'm only going to cover how I did the change to Newforms Admin, as the other changes were relatively simple for my projects. I made these changes on a live server, whilst my projects were running. For the volume of changes I had to make, this was very straightforward. I use FastCGI, and because the FastCGI processes were already running I was able to modify the Python code without it taking effect until I restarted FastCGI."]

Martin von Löwis Receives 2008 Frank Willison Award

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:55:00 -0000

Steve Holden: Martin von Löwis Receives 2008 Frank Willison Award ["Martin von Löwis continues to be a tireless worker on behalf of the Python community. He has been a long-term contributor to the Python core, and regularly answers questions on both the python-dev list and the comp.lang.python newsgroup. A PSF director since 2002 he was also the prime mover in transitioning the Python development infrastructure from SourceForge, and has created several Roundup issue trackers for various areas. He chaired the PSF grants committee, which among other achievements kept Jython alive when its future looked uncertain. I could go on, but you get the idea: when something needs doing, he rarely hesitates to step up to the plate."]

Django 1.0 alpha released!

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:07:00 -0000

James Bennett: Django 1.0 alpha released! ["In accordance with the Django 1.0 release roadmap, tonight we've released the first 'alpha' testing version of Django 1.0. This release includes all of the major features due for inclusion in the final Django 1.0, though some lower-priority items are still scheduled to be included before the 1.0 feature freeze, which will occur with the first beta release next month."]

Launching a High Performance Django Site

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:17:00 -0000

Ed Menendez; Launching a High Performance Django Site ["Here's a check list of things you can do to make sure your application can be optimized quickly when you put on your optimization hat. Note, most applications don't need all of this since most applications do not get anywhere near enough traffic to justify even bothering. But if you're lucky enough to need to optimize your Django app, I hope this post can help you."]

A matter of trust

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:15:00 -0000

App Engine Fan: A matter of trust ["... assume that you have built a small tool that you would like to share only with family and friends. How could you prevent other, unauthorized people, to just gain access to your app? One solution to the problem is store a list of permitted users in a list (either hardcoded or in a database). This will work if you know exactly who the selected few are. but is also means that you have to administer the list and keep it up to date. A more generic system would be an invitation based access like gmail originally had, but that would mean one would also need to manage those invitations somehow in the database. The following example shows a middle ground -- a simple technology called HMAC to make sure a particular google account is actually supposed to have access."]

Making division in Python faster

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:14:00 -0000

Fredrik Johansson: Making division in Python faster ["Python is clever enough to use the Karatsuba algorithm for multiplication of large integers, which gives an O(n1.6) asymptotic time complexity for n-digit multiplication. This is a huge improvement over the O(n2) schoolbook algorithm when multiplying anything larger than a few hundred digits. Unfortunately, division in Python is not so well equipped: Python uses a brute force O(n2) algorithm for quotients of any size. Several algorithms in mpmath perform several multiplications followed by a single large division; at high precision, the final division can take as much time as all the preceding multiplications together. Division is needed much less often than multiplication, but it is needed nonetheless. Newton's method to the rescue."]

Jython 2.5 Alpha Released!

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:12:00 -0000

Frank Wierzbicki: Jython 2.5 Alpha Released! ["On behalf of the Jython development team, I'm pleased to announce that Jython 2.5a0+ is available for download. See the installation instructions. This is the first alpha release of Jython 2.5 and contains many new features. In fact, because we have skipped 2.3 and 2.4, there are too many to even summarize."]

Simple Top-Down Parsing in Python

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:40:00 -0000

Fredrik Lundh: Simple Top-Down Parsing in Python ["In the early seventies, Vaughan Pratt published an elegant improvement to recursive-descent in his paper Top-down Operator Precedence. Pratt's algorithm associates semantics with tokens instead of grammar rules, and uses a simple 'binding power' mechanism to handle precedence levels. /.../ In this article, I'll briefly explain how the algorithm works, discuss different ways to implement interpreters and translators with it in Python, and finally use it to implement a parser for Python's expression syntax."]

Using Python Via The New Java 6 Scripting Engine

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:33:00 -0000

Daniel Ostermeier/Jason Sankey: Using Python Via The New Java 6 Scripting Engine ["Do you ever find yourself writing Java code that interacts with external processes and systems, but wish you could use a scripting language more suited to the task? If you have Java 6 available to you, then you are in luck."]

Sprinting to the finish

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:31:00 -0000

Jacob Kaplan-Moss: Sprinting to the finish ["Django 1.0 is about two months away — time to get cracking! To help get everything done by the deadline, we'll be holding a series of sprints. Over the next six weeks we'll hold sprints in Sausalito, Lawrence, Austin, and Portland, and virtually all over the world."]