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Four short links: 24 April 2013

By Nat Torkington
April 24, 2013

Solar Energy: This is What a Disruptive Technology Looks Like (Brian McConnell) — In 1977, solar cells cost upwards of $70 per Watt of capacity. In 2013, that cost has dropped to $0.74 per Watt, a 100:1 improvement (source: The …

Twisted Python: the engine of your Internet

By Jessica McKellar
April 22, 2013

I want to build a web server, a mail server, a BitTorrent client, a DNS server, or an IRC bot—clients and servers for a custom protocol in Python. And I want them to be cross-platform, RFC-compliant, testable, and deployable in …

Four short links: 17 April 2013

By Nat Torkington
April 17, 2013

Computer Software Archive (Jason Scott) — The Internet Archive is the largest collection of historical software online in the world. Find me someone bigger. Through these terabytes (!) of software, the whole of the software landscape of the last 50 …

The Kirbster Reports Back from Pycon 2013

By Kirby Urner
April 11, 2013

(Artwork by Idan Gazit) Not all scripting languages are equal, and sometimes you may need to sell your boss on that idea. She might think, “Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP… we don’t care, what’s the difference?” Unless you’re equally happy using … Continue reading →

R as a programming language

By Courtney Nash
April 11, 2013

Garrett Grolemund is an O’Reilly author and teaches classes on data analysis for R Studios. We sat down to discuss why data scientists, statisticians, and programmers alike can use the R language to make data analysis easier and more powerful. …

Python data tools just keep getting better

By Ben Lorica
March 24, 2013

Here are a few observations inspired by conversations I had during the just concluded PyData conference1. The Python data community is well-organized: Besides conferences (PyData, SciPy, EuroSciPy), there is a new non-profit (NumFOCUS) dedicated to supporting scientific computing and data …

Four short links: 5 November 2012

By Nat Torkington
November 5, 2012

The Psychology of Everything (YouTube) — illustrating some of the most fundamental elements of human nature through case studies about compassion, racism, and sex. (via Mind Hacks) Reports of Exempt Organizations (Public Resource) — This service provides bulk access to …

Checking in on Python

By Rachel Roumeliotis
October 4, 2012

Guido van Rossum is the creator of Python. I recently had the opportunity to talk with him about the state of the language. You probably don’t realize it, but Python’s capabilities are pushed every time you use YouTube and Dropbox. …

Four short links: 27 July 2012

By Nat Torkington
July 27, 2012

Social Media in China (Fast Company) — fascinating interview with Tricia Wang. We often don’t think we have a lot to learn from tech companies outside of the U.S., but Twitter should look to Weibo for inspiration for what can …

Using Python for Computer Vision

By Andy Oram
May 31, 2012

In this interview, Jan Erik Solem, author of the upcoming book "Programming Computer Vision with Python," describes the uses for some common operations, and choices programmers have.

Four short links: 15 May 2012

By Nat Torkington
May 15, 2012

Mobile Money (The Economist) -- Many people know that "mobile money"—financial transactions on mobile phones—has taken off in Africa. How far it has gone, though, still comes as a bit of a shock. Three-quarters of the countries that use mobile money most frequently are in Africa, and mobile banking in some of them has reached extraordinary levels. Akka --...

Pycon 2012 in the Rear View Mirror

By Kirby Urner
April 16, 2012

Python wrangler Kirby Urner's wrap-up of Pycon 2012.

US Pycon 2012

By Kirby Urner
March 6, 2012

Kirby Urner shares his thoughts on Python, Pycons, and the potential for the Python programming language to open up a world of possibilities.

Developer Week in Review: NASA says goodbye to big iron

By James Turner
February 16, 2012

This week, NASA marked the end of an era, as the last of its big iron is retired. Microsoft continues to signal that its forays into open source are legitimate. And a new open source gaming project has a little extra horse-power, thanks to the fans behind it.

Four short links: 24 August 2011

By Nat Torkington
August 24, 2011

STM in PyPy -- a proposal to add software transactional memory to the all-Python Python interpreter as a way of simplifying concurrent programming. I first learned about STM from Haskell's Simon Peyton-Jones at OSCON. (via Nelson Minar) Werner Vogels' Static Web Site on S3 -- nice writeup of the toolchain to publish a web site to static files served...

Four short links: 17 August 2011

By Nat Torkington
August 17, 2011

Tablib -- MIT-licensed open source library for manipulating tabular data. Reputed to have a great API. (via Tim McNamara) Stanford Education Everywhere -- courses in CS, machine learning, math, and engineering that are open for all to take. Over 58,000 have already signed up for the introduction to machine learning taught by Peter Norvig, Google's Director of Research. Wearable...

Four short links: 12 August 2011

By Nat Torkington
August 12, 2011

Hippocampus Text Adventure -- written as an exercise in learning Python, you explore the hippocampus. It's simple, but I like the idea of educational text adventures. (Well, educational in that you learn about more than the axe-throwing behaviour of the cave-dwelling dwarf) Pandas -- BSD-licensed Python data analysis library. Building Lanyrd -- Simon Willison's talk (with slides) about the...

Four short links: 8 August 2011

By Nat Torkington
August 8, 2011

Bulbflow -- a Python framework for graph databases: it's like an ORM for graphs. (via Joshua Schachter) Nomograms -- the lost art of graphical computing. (via John D Cook) Web Intents -- adding Android-style Intents to the web. Services register their intention to be able to handle an action on the user's behalf. Applications request to start an Action...

It's True. Don't Believe A Word Of It.

By Paul Barry
July 29, 2011

The Ruby book was smoking!

Four short links: 17 May 2011

By Nat Torkington
May 17, 2011

Sorting Out 9/11 (New Yorker) -- the thorniest problem for the 9/11 memorial was the ordering of the names. Computer science to the rescue! Tagger -- Python library for extracting tags (statistically significant words or phrases) from a piece of text. Free Science, One Paper at a Time (Wired) -- Jonathan Eisen's attempt to collect and distribute his father's...

Less Code Is Better

By Paul Barry
May 10, 2011

I'm a big fan of the "less code is better" principle, in that I firmly believe the number of bugs in my code is directly related to the number of lines of code I write.

Four short links: 25 April 2011

By Nat Torkington
April 25, 2011

E-Referral Evaluation Interim Findings -- in general good, but note this: The outstanding system issues are an ongoing source of frustration and concern, including [...] automated data uptake from the GP [General Practitioner=family doctor] PMS [Patient Management System], that sometimes has clearly inaccurate or contradictory information. When you connect systems, you realize the limitations of the data in them....

Four short links: 21 March 2011

By Nat Torkington
March 21, 2011

Javascript Trie Performance Analysis (John Resig) -- if you program in Javascript and you're not up to John's skill level (*cough*) then you should read this and follow along. It's a ride-along in the brain of a master. Think Stats -- an introduction to statistics for Python programmers. (via Edd Dumbill) Bolefloor -- they build curvy wooden floors. Instead...

Four short links: 17 March 2011

By Nat Torkington
March 17, 2011

The Open Data Manual -- a HOWTO for organisations wanting to open up data. This report discusses legal, social and technical aspects of open data. The manual can be used by anyone but is especially designed for those seeking to open up data. It discusses the why, what and how of open data — why to go open, what...

Four short links: 2 March 2011

By Nat Torkington
March 2, 2011

Unicode in Python, Completely Demystified -- a good introduction to Unicode in Python, which helped me with some code. (via Hacker News) A Ban on Brain-Boosting Drugs (Chronicle of Higher Education) -- Simply calling the use of study drugs "unfair" tells us nothing about why colleges should ban them. If such drugs really do improve academic performance among healthy...

Four Short Links: 2 February 2011

By Nat Torkington
February 2, 2011

Seven Foundational Visualization Papers -- seven classics in the field that are cited and useful again and again. Git Immersion -- a "walking tour" of Git inspired by the premise that to know a thing is to do it. Cf Learn Python the Hard Way or even NASA's Planet Makeover. We'll see more and more tutorials that require participation...

Developer Year in Review: Programming Languages

By James Turner
December 22, 2010

This year brought confusion and chaos in the Java space, continued growth for functional languages due to the attack of multicore, and the usual popularity for all of the dynamic languages we know and love.

Strata Gems: Make beautiful graphs of your Twitter network

By Edd Dumbill
December 9, 2010

Using a bit of Python and the Gephi graph tool, exploring your own Twitter network is a great way to learn about analyzing networks: and the results definitely have a "wow" factor.

Four short links: 30 September 2010

By Nat Torkington
September 30, 2010

Learn Python The Hard Way -- Zed Shaw's book on programming Python, written as 52 exercises: Each exercise is one or two pages and follows the exact same format. You type each one in (no copy-paste!), make it run, do the extra credit, and then move on. If you get stuck, at least type it in and skip the...

Four short links: 20 September 2010

By Nat Torkington
September 20, 2010

The Tracks of Bizarre Robot Traders (The Atlantic) -- I love the idea that these mysterious effect-less trades might simply be there to slow down competitors' analytic systems because every millisecond matters. MS Paint Adventures -- a weird mashup of MS Paint and text adventure games. tablib -- a format-agnostic tabular dataset library for Python. (via joshua on delicious)...

New OST Course! "Python 2: Getting More Out of Python" by Steve Holden

By Trish Gray
September 7, 2010

The O'Reilly School of Technology is excited to announce the release of Python 2: Getting More Out of Python. This is the second course in the upcoming Python Programming Certificate Series, and right now you can enroll at 50% off normal tuition. Check out the below video of me interviewing Steve about his courses in a webcast from a few months ago:

Four short links: 4 August 2010

By Nat Torkington
August 4, 2010

FuXi -- Python-based, bi-directional logical reasoning system for the semantic web from the folks at the Open Knowledge Foundation. (via About Inferencing) Harness the Power of Being an Internet -- I learn by trying to build something, there's no other way I can discover the devils-in-the-details. Unfortunately that's an incredibly inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around...

Four short links: 2 June 2010

By Nat Torkington
June 2, 2010

Wikileaks Launched on Stolen Documents (Wired) -- Wired claims the first set of documents was obtained by running a Tor node that users connected to ("exit node") and saving the plaintext that was sent to the users, without their knowledge. Reminds me of the adage that nothing big in Silicon Valley starts without being some degree of evil first:...

Four short links: 10 May 2010

By Nat Torkington
May 10, 2010

zxing -- barcode library for iPhone, Android, Java, and more. Guido's Python -- how the compiler and interpreter see your Python programs. It wasn't until I had this level of knowledge of Perl that I really know what the hell I was doing. (via Hacker News) UK Election Data -- this was posted on the eve of the UK...

Four short links: 20 April 2010

By Nat Torkington
April 20, 2010

Epigrams in Programming -- all from the remarkable Alan Perlis. By the time I learned that he was responsible for such gems as "Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon", "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing", and "Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to...

PyMOTW: Creating XML Documents with ElementTree

By Doug Hellmann
March 21, 2010

In addition to its parsing capabilities, ElementTree also supports creating well-formed XML documents from Element objects constructed in your application.

PyMOTW: Parsing XML Documents with ElementTree

By Doug Hellmann
March 14, 2010

Python's xml.etree.ElementTree library makes it easy to use XML data in your application or library.

PyMOTW: tabnanny - Indentation validator

By Doug Hellmann
March 7, 2010

Consistent use of indentation is important in a langauge like Python, where white-space is significant. The tabnanny module provides a scanner to report on "ambiguous" use of indentation.

Four short links: 5 March 2010

By Nat Torkington
March 5, 2010

Rapportive -- a simple social CRM built into Gmail. They replace the ads in Gmail with photos, bio, and info from social media sites. (via ReadWrite Web) Best Practices in Web Development with Django and Python -- great set of recommendations. (via Jon Udell's article on checklists) Think Like a Statistician Without The Math (Flowing Data) -- Finally, and...

Four short links: 25 February 2010

By Nat Torkington
February 25, 2010

like python -- lets you write Python in Valleygirl, LOLCAT, fratboy, and rap. Still not a handle on writing Perl in Latin. (via Hacker News) Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview (NPR) -- applicable beyond climate change. Whether you get what you want depends on how it's framed and how it's delivered. The paper cited is available for...

PyMOTW: cgitb - Detailed traceback reports

By Doug Hellmann
January 30, 2010

cgitb was originally designed for showing errors and debugging information in web applications. It was later updated to include plain-text output as well, but unfortunately wasn't renamed. This has lead to obscurity and the module is not used as often as it should be. Nonetheless, cgitb is a valuable debugging tool in the standard library.

Four short links: 1 January 2010

By Nat Torkington
January 1, 2010

Measuring Type -- clever way to measure which font uses more ink. Vowpal Wabbit -- fast learning software from Yahoo! Research and Hunch. Code available in git. (via zecharia on Delicious) Literature Review on Indexing Time-Series Data -- a graduate student's research work included this literature review of papers on indexing time-series data. (via jpatanooga on Delicious) igraph --...

Four short links: 29 December 2009

By Nat Torkington
December 29, 2009

Turning The Page Online -- historic science books in high-resolution online. Hookes Micrografia was the first view of the microscopic world, and his astonishingly detailed and beautiful illustrations are there to view and print. Detailed Psychology of Trolls -- You might be surprised to learn that Trolls readily engage in long debates with fellow Trolls - people, that is,...

Four short links: 8 December 2009

By Nat Torkington
December 8, 2009

Python's Moratorium -- Python language designers have declared a moratorium on enhancement proposals (feature requests) while the world's Python programmers get used to the last batch of New And Shiny they shipped. I'm reasonably sure that the ALGOL designers went through exactly the same discussions, and I know Perl did too. So, don’t be afraid of it - don’t...

PyCon 2010 Invited Speakers

By Doug Hellmann
December 6, 2009

The list of invited speakers for PyCon 2010 has been announced, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of them.

PyMOTW: sys, Part 6: Low-level Thread Support

By Doug Hellmann
November 15, 2009

sys includes low-level functions for controlling and debugging thread behavior.

PyMOTW: sys, Part 5: Tracing Your Program As It Runs

By Doug Hellmann
November 8, 2009

There are two ways to inject code to watch your Python program run: tracing and profiling. They are similar, but intended for different purposes and so have different constraints. The easiest, but least efficient, way to monitor your program is through a trace hook, which can be used for writing a debugger, code coverage monitoring, or many other purposes.

Announcing O'Reilly Answers - Clever Hacks. Creative Ideas. Innovative Solutions.

By Allen Noren
November 4, 2009

We're launching the beta of O'Reilly Answers, and I'm inviting you to be part of it. In brief, O'Reilly Answers is a community site for sharing knowledge, asking questions, and providing answers that brings together our customers, authors, editors, conference speakers, and Foo (Friends of O'Reilly). O'Reilly is at the center of an amazing exchange of knowledge sharing and idea generation, and we want you to join us in changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.