Python Zone | Everything for the Python & Django developer

Steven Lott04/19/13
2642 views
0 replies

Legacy Code Preservation: What's the Story?

Back in the 70's, we had to tailor this cache to optimize performance on a computer that---by modern standards---was very small and slow. In the course of the conversion, I was assigned a script ("JCL" is what they called a shell script on Z/OS) that ran two programs and some utility sort steps...

John Cook04/19/13
2200 views
0 replies

Moments of Mixtures in Python

I needed to compute the higher moments of a mixture distribution for a project I’m working on. I’m writing up the code here in case anyone else finds this useful. (And in case I’ll find it useful in the future.)

Mike Driscoll04/18/13
3449 views
0 replies

Python Gets Funded by DARPA for Big Data Project: Blaze

I first heard about Blaze from NumPy’s original developer’s blog back in December 2012. Recently InformationWeek announced that DARPA was funding the project to the tune of $3 million dollars.

Mitch Pronschinske04/17/13
2099 views
0 replies

Links You Don't Want To Miss (4/17)

Computer dinosaurs still walk the earth. This story, plus a cool Mac Terminal easter egg, a prominent game written in QBASIC, and a Python heart monitor that only needs a webcam.

Eric Gregory04/17/13
6211 views
0 replies

Dev of the Week: A. Jesse Jiryu Davis

This week we're talking to A. Jesse Jiryu Davis, a developer at 10gen specializing in MongoDB, Python, Tornado, and Javascript.

Allen Coin04/17/13
3419 views
0 replies

Links You Don't Want to Miss: Apr. 17

Today: Everyone should learn to program, but not everyone should be a programmer; Is Stack Exchange hurting programming?; GitHub's new logo, and a "programming in a nutshell" comic.

Isaac Taylor04/17/13
4691 views
3 replies

Coding for the Changes You'll Have to Make Next Month

Anytime you find yourself looking at a class's implementation to figure out how to use the class, you're not programming to the interface, you're programming through the interface to the implementation. If you're programming through the interface, encapsulation is broken, and once encapsulation starts to break down, abstraction won't be too far behind.

Mike Driscoll04/17/13
925 views
0 replies

The Python Brochure Project

If you’ve been struggling to get Python adopted at your place of work, this brochure might help as it showcases how Python is used in business in various fields from industry and science to education and government.

René Pickhardt04/16/13
1285 views
0 replies

Teaching Web Science (Web Architecture and Web Ethics)

Overall we can say that the concept of the course worked really well. Especially putting such a high focus on the Web Architecture and actually letting students implement protocols helped to gain a deeper understanding.

Nick Johnson04/16/13
14665 views
0 replies

Algorithm of the Week: Fountain Codes (from "Damn Cool Algorithms")

Today's subject is Fountain Codes, otherwise known as "rateless codes". A fountain code is a way to take some data - a file, for example - and transform it into an effectively unlimited number of encoded chunks, such that you can reassemble the original file given any subset of those chunks...

John Sonmez04/16/13
4625 views
7 replies

So You Think You Can Polymorph?

In the true spirit of this blog I am going to take the complex idea of polymorphism and make it as simple as possible. Now you may already think you understand polymorphism—and perhaps you do—but I’ve found that most software developers don’t actually understand exactly what polymorphism is.

Lorna Mitchell04/16/13
1284 views
0 replies

Pretty-Printing JSON with Python's JSON Tool

Today's quick tip is something that was widely retweeted after my "Debugging HTTP" talk at the ever-fabulous WhiskyWeb conference last weekend. When working with JSON on the commandline, here's a quick tip for showing the JSON in a nicer format:

Allan Kelly04/16/13
4045 views
2 replies

Requirements: Whose Job are They Anyway?

Companies believe that Developers will somehow comprehend what is needed from a simple statement. In the worst cases this is a condition I refer to as: “Requirements by Project Title”. Just because Developers understand the technology doesn’t mean they understand what is needed.

John Blanco04/16/13
4879 views
2 replies

I Have An Idea for an App! Now What?!

It’s 10:00 AM, you’re in your office (or better yet, at home on your couch) dreaming up million-dollar app ideas when — BAM! — like a bolt of lightning it hits you. EUREKA! You have conceived of The Next Big Thing™

A. Jesse Jiryu Davis04/15/13
1497 views
0 replies

My PyCon Lightning Talk About Toro

The lightning talk I gave at PyCon is now online. I talked for 4½ minutes on Toro, the package I wrote to provide locks, events, conditions, semaphores, and queues for Tornado.