Slashdot Mirror

flexatone writes "Composer Christopher Ariza, author of the first algorithmic, computer-generated podcast, announces the next phase of his experimental political-media-mashup project: the babelcast-zoetrope. The babelcast-zoetrope employs the subscription model of the vodcast (RSS feed, iTMS subscription) to deliver timely multi-media artifacts of the contemporary media landscape. Generated with free, open-source software tools (such as athenaCL, Python, Csound, and ffmpeg), babelcast-zoetrope is an experimental, algorithmic, computer-generated video podcast. Sounds and images of U.S. and World leaders and commentators are algorithmically fragmented, distorted, and recombined into a media tapestry. New episodes are defined by a time period: audio and video sequences are constructed only with materials collected during this period, lasting from days to weeks."

Simon P. Chappell writes "I don't know about you, but I hardly bother with browser bookmarks any more. I used to have so many bookmarks, back in the early days of Netscape's 4 series, that I would have to regularly trim and edit my bookmark file to prevent my browser from crashing on startup -- that's a lot of bookmarks, folks! Now, I go to my favourite web search engine, enter a couple of appropriate search terms and voila, there's my page! Search engines are so ubiquitous that we rarely give much thought to the technology that powers them. Lucene in Action by Otis Gospodnetic and Erik Hatcher , both committers on the Lucene project, goes behind the HTML and takes you on a guided tour of Lucene, one of a generation of powerful Free and Open-Source search engines now available." Read on for the rest of Chappell's review. Lucene in Action author Gospodnetic and Hatcher pages 421 (7 pages of index) publisher Manning rating 9 reviewer Simon P. Chappell ISBN 1932394281 summary Solid introduction to Lucene Who's it for? Lucene is a library and framework, rather than a complete application. It truly is an engine, around which you are expected to build and extend your own application. Like Lucene, the book is targeted at those who are looking for a tool to build their own search facility application rather than just "download and go." The book does include a number of case studies of Lucene usage (including at least one download and go search engine) but those are included to show how to use and adapt Lucene to fit differing environments rather than as ends in themselves. The Structure The book is sensibly divided into two parts. The first part looks at "Core Lucene" functionality, while the second part addresses "Applied Lucene".

Part one has six chapters, covering the central components and inner workings of Lucene. It's here that the book starts with a tutorial introduction, familiarising the reader with the concepts of Lucene as a search engine around which you wrap your own code. The other five chapters move steadily through good search engine fare, with indexing getting the whole of chapter two to itself The discussion of how to retrieve text from the documents being indexed is mentioned here but postponed until chapter seven, where it is dealt with exhaustively. Chapter three covers searching, and especially how Lucene ranks documents.

Chapter four examines analysis. In it's chapter introduction, the book explains that "Analysis, in Lucene, is the process of converting field text into it's most fundamental indexed representation, terms." This process is performed by an analyser, which tokenises text according to it's own built in rules; each analyser will have a different emphasis, some want only dictionary words, others might explicitly include acronyms and sometimes you'll want an analyser that will block stop words (those words in languages that are part of the structure, but that add nothing to the information being conveyed by the text; classic examples of stop words in English include "a", "and" and "the").

Chapter five looks at advanced search techniques; everything from sorting search results, searching on multiple fields to filtering searches. Many free or open source software tools are extensible, and Lucene is no exception. Chapter six addresses creating and using custom components within Lucene, everything from custom sort methods to custom filters.

Part two, the final four chapters, cover Applied Lucene. It is dedicated to practical uses of Lucene and answers the question "So, what can I do with a search engine?" Chapter seven covers ways and means to parse common, non-plain text document formats. The primary formats covered are RTF, XML, PDF, HTML and Microsoft Word. The ability to parse and index these file formats will cover the search engine needs of the majority of Lucene users. Chapter eight looks at a number of Lucene tools and extensions that are available; many of them being free and open source software. Chapter nine covers ports of Lucene. While for many users, Lucene being a Java library is not a problem, some users want its functionality in environments that do not have Java. The chapter looks at ports written in C++, C#, Perl and Python. Lastly, chapter ten takes a thorough look at seven Lucene case studies. Perhaps the "star" case study is the one about Nutch, a download and go search engine written by Doug Cutting , the original author of Lucene.

There are three appendices. The first offers installation advice for Lucene; a useful addition that those newer to working with Java libraries will surely appreciate. The second appendix has a very well explained description of the Lucene index format. This is the kind of information that can be hard to find, so it is welcome in a book of this sort. The last appendix contains a number of categorised resource references. The number and breadth of the resources provided could provide quite an incredible education in information retrieval theory if the reader was inclined to read them all. What's to Like? There are several things to like about this book. Let's start with the fact that the authors are part of the core development team of Lucene. This gives them both credibility and an excellent understanding of the internal workings of Lucene. Co-author Erik Hatcher is a fantastic writer, having previously been a co-author of the only Ant book worth bothering with, Manning's Java Development with Ant . (Full disclosure: I do know Erik personally.)

The structure of the book is well thought out and each chapter does seem to move your understanding forward when combined with what you learned from the proceeding ones. The division into core and applied Lucene is also helpful. While you'd hope that this was the case, it often isn't; hence I note it as a positive.

I especially appreciate that this book does not fill up page after page with API documentation. The authors appear to have grasped that if you have Internet access to download the software, you might just be able to access the documentation online; rather, they concentrate on the way to use the software. What a concept!

As a part of Manning's "in Action" series, the book has excellent layout and has obviously been thoroughly edited by both technical evaluators and copyeditors. This might seem to be a small thing to some, but a well-edited book stands out clearly from the crowd. What's to consider? If you are looking for a book on using and configuring a download and go style of search engine, this book would be less suitable. While the case study on Nutch is of good length, it would be too short to useful as a configuration guide. Conclusion I enjoyed reading this book. If you have any text searching needs, this book will be more than sufficient equipment to guide you to successful completion. Even, if you are just looking to download a pre-written search engine, then this book will provide a good background to the nature of information retrieval in general and text indexing and searching specifically.

You can purchase Lucene in Action from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Richard Jones writes "Python's software repository has finally got its own home at the Python Cheese Shop. The Cheese Shop includes the package index (PyPI) and package download repository."

Qa1 writes "Seems that Python is moving into the enterprise. At the recent PyCon it has become apparent that it's not just Google, GIS, Nokia or even Microsoft anymore. The article points out that Python is increasingly becoming a perfectly viable and even preferred choice for the enterprise. More and more companies are looking at Python as a good alternative to past favorites like Java. Will we finally be able to code for living in a language that's not painful? Exciting times!"

Robert Nagle writes "Over the last year, Zope and Plone have gained mindshare as open source web application servers. In the last few months, two books have come out about how to use, extend and administer Plone. One is Andy McKay's Definitive Guide to Plone (available for free online), and the other is Julie Meloni's Plone Content Management Essentials." Read on for Nagle's review of both books. (See each) author (See each) pages (See each) publisher (See each) rating (See each) reviewer Robert Nagle ISBN (See each) summary McKay's book is indeed definitive; Meloni's book is a good introduction

The Zope/plone combination offers a variety of advantages to the open source developer: robust workflow capabilities, conformity to Web standards, cross-platform support and a sophisticated security model. On the other hand, it has a steep learning curve and deals with objects in an object database (instead of the usual RDBMS/LAMP data model).

First, here's 30 seconds of what Plone is all about (the Slashdot editors can provide the bunnies). Zope is a Python-backed web application server which includes a Zope Management Interface (or ZMI), a web-based interface to modify templates and interact with/administer the Zope Object Database (ZODB). Although Zope can be a standalone webserver, in fact people usually put it behind Apache for reasons of security, performance and caching. Years ago, Zope used a custom scripting language (DTML) to do its business logic, but later switched to an XML-based templating language called ZPT and let users use Python-based scripts to perform actions. Zope is the application server; CMF is the content management framework, and Plone is the standards-compliant front end that lets you manage skins, slots, styles, portlets, forms, actions, content types and installation of products. Then there's archetypes, which make it easier to create new content types and web forms. Oh, have I mentioned that we're dealing with objects here? In other words, we're not just throwing data and text into SQL); we're creating different types of content (documents, events, multimedia objects), storing them as objects (with actions, metadata, etc) and then summoning them (or parts of them) from the object database with ZPT using macros and indices.

From a design perspective, Plone is elegant although so multi-layered that it's often hard to figure out where to make changes. Also, while the Plone front end is snazzy, most users end up having to go to the ZMI to modify the template and edit actions (which, depending on how you look at it, can be an advantage or disadvantage). Finally, although the list of open source products for Plone and Zope is impressive, they don't necessarily play well together, and many products for Zope don't work in Plone and vice versa.

Definitive Guide to Plone author Andy McKay pages 584 publisher Apress rating 5 ISBN 1590593294

That is where Andy McKay's book and Julie Meloni's book come in. Of the two books, Andy's is more comprehensive and geared toward the experienced developer (and typical Slashdot reader); Julie's book does more hand-holding and provides more thorough explanations of introductory concepts.

As a lead plone developer, McKay has intimate knowledge of the good, the bad and the ugly for plone. Although his chapters fly by certain introductory tasks at record speed, he explains things well and offers lots of tips and hints throughout the book. (I can't tell you how many times I've put the book down and exclaimed, 'Aha, so that's how you ...'). The sequence of presentation is generally logical with one exception: in chapter 14 (page 459), the book mentions that you can use Zope Enterprise Objects to debug a live server without having to shut down Plone. That is valuable -- even vital-- information, and belonged in the earlier chapter on installing Zope. Although the chapters don't go into great depth, his code examples and commentary are sufficient to explain what is going on.

It's not the main focus of the book, but the sections on system administration (caching, tuning, scaling) are well done although some things are missing (like Virtual Host Monster). It's assumed that readers will be able to find this information elsewhere.

The best parts about McKay's book are how it relates Python programming to Plone. The deeper you get into Plone, the more important it is to write Python scripts and do basic Python debugging. Even basic sysadmin tasks like product management seems to require an understanding of object-oriented concepts. One initial difficulty comes with the idea of URL paths corresponding not to actual directories but objects being contained within other objects. (So that login_form in http://foobar/login_form doesn't necessarily reside within the foobar directory, but is in any directory or object acquired by the foobar object). This type of URL (called a traversal) is explained well enough in the book, but often makes it difficult to figure out where to find things within the ZMI and the file system. Who would have ever thought that the place to edit the login_form object for http://foobar/login_form is /foobar/portal_skins/plone_forms/login_form within the ZMI (which is actually /zopeinstance/products/CMFPlone/skins/plone_forms/ login_form.pt on the file system)? That's why McKay's skin example (in Chapter 7) accomplishes so many things; it provides a "guided tour" through the layers (i.e., scripts, templates, etc) contained within portal_skins; it also runs through the process of creating custom templates and forms based on existing ones. This, by the way, is one of the niftiest features of Zope/Plone; you push a Customize button in the ZMI, and voila! you've cloned an object for customizing. This is dense stuff, but after reading this chapter, I have a better sense of the beast I'm dealing with.

I particularly liked the book's chapters on archetypes and manipulating content types. If Zope/Plone is about manipulating objects, then it helps to have a variety of objects to manipulate. Archetypes lets you create new content types and new views for content types. By providing Python libraries for fields and widgets, archetypes makes it relatively easy to create web forms for data input. McKay's book covers this topic thoroughly and clearly. I also appreciated the chapter on searches and indexing (and the helpful table of indices and index types); this filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. The sections on security and workflow contained good examples, and the book also contained a section on internationalization. The programming chapters are the best parts about the book.

On the negative side, I wish there were more charts and tables in the book (perhaps as appendices). A lot of this is already found within Zope help or the Plone site, but it would have been handy to have these things as reference. Although McKay's book contains a good (though brief) introduction to Zope Page Templates, the explanation of the syntax is scattered throughout the ZPT chapter; it would have been much better to summarize all the tal tags in a single table.

Also, at many points during the ZPT chapter and other chapters, McKay refers to Plone and archetype API classes that are described nowhere else in the book. It took me a while to figure out where these things were coming from (and I would refer you to here for API descriptions). The book would have benefited from a better description of APIs, even a high level view of it (You can find some quick references here).

Because of its focus on development, McKay's book spends almost no time on third-party products or "sanctioned" products available in the plone collective. This is somewhat understandable (given the mercurial nature of product development), but the casual reader might finish the book without realizing that additional additional products even exist. (Here's a fairly comprehensive list of Plone and Zope products).

Also, I would have liked better explanation about change management. Plone has its own product installer, but I always have difficulties upgrading products. How do you test products before actually deploying them? How do you manage upgrades (and how do you upgrade Zope itself?) For such an extensible project as Plone, managing the installation, testing and upgrade of third-party products can be a disaster waiting to happen.

Plone Content Management Essentials author Julie C. Meloni pages 258 publisher SAMS rating 3 ISBN 0672326876

Julie Meloni's book takes a different approach to the subject, one geared less to Python development and more to deploying third-party products and customizing site appearances. I'm tempted to say that the typical Slashdot reader would find this book "shallow," but really that is not fair. Although Meloni's book contains a short appendix on Python, it focuses more on how Plone works out of the box and how to take advantage of core functionality. In fact, Meloni's slender book contains many useful sections probably deemed too elementary for McKay's book: how structured text works, for example.

Rather than trying to cover everything Plone-related, Meloni identifies a small number of typical tasks and explains them in detail. For example, the book documents the Plone style sheets and how to modify them in the ZMI. Too basic, you say? Well, yes, but it's still useful reference material. Rather than trying to teach you how to write your own Plone product or content type from scratch, she walks us through using that nifty Customize button to clone existing templates for customization (although to tell the truth, you still need would need to know a good bit about Python and ZPT syntax to complete the task). Although the book's section on skins focused mainly on how they relate to style sheets, I found the section on customizing slots to be particularly useful.

In contrast to McKay's book, Meloni spends a separate chapter on deploying and using several popular plone products: a discussion board, a weblog and a photo album. Given that several competing products exist for each category, and that better products are likely to come out later, this chapter will probably be the first to go out of date.

Perhaps the book could have spent less time on the products themselves and more on managing products and testing/troubleshooting them.

Of the two books, McKay's book is the more indispensable, even though I still wound up consulting external sources fairly often for clarification. On the other hand, after reading first McKay's book and then Meloni's, I wish I had read Meloni's book first. Meloni's book provides a great introduction to basic plone concepts; McKay's book is great for the power user/developer. (Still another book, recently released, Cameron Cooper's Building Websites with Plone probably goes into more detail on the Python side; read a sample PDF chapter).

Perhaps I sound like a shill for the publishing industry when I say this, but it sometimes make sense to possess two or more books on a topic. The decision-making process for geeks buying books can sometimes differ radically from the general public. Geeks, for example, don't have qualms about paying full price for a new book if the content is up-to-late and relevant to the task at hand. The ordinary reader might make a purchasing decision on the basis of which book constitutes the highest information density (the $20 book with 200 pages vs. the $30 books with 500 pages). Geeks are also more inclined to view the purchasing decision in terms of time saved (i.e., how much time will reading this book save me in the long run?) From the standpoint of saving time, there's a lot to be said for reading an introductory book first and then moving to a book on more advanced topics.

Of course, Andy McKay's book is available already for free on the web (and kudos to Apress Publishing for allowing this).

** Actually, mysql/postgresql DB adaptors make it possible for Zope to fetch/send sql data; and Archetypes has a function, SQLStorage, to allow data from content objects to persist in a sql database (news to me). Other Web Resources:

• Zopezen, Andy McKay's development weblog
• Plone How-to's
• List of Plone Products and Zope Products, Sorted by Category
• Zope & Plone API's. (More here).
• Great Visual Guide to the Zope/Plone Interface
• Handouts from the Plone Conference for 2003 and 2004
• ZopeMag Weekly, an intermittent series of Zope and Plone tips and tricks.
• For general Python introductions, see the Python Tutorial, How To Think Like A Computer Scientist (Python) and Dive Into Python (also published by Apress and free online)

Robert Nagle (aka idiotprogrammer) writes fiction under various pseudonyms. He lives and works in Houston, Texas. In early 2005 he will be launching a plone-backed literary community ezine. You can purchase the Definitive Guide to Plone from bn.com; bn also carries Plone Content Management Essentials . Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

jg21 writes "Although this reader-compiled list of software development's giants omits pioneers like George Boole, John Louis von Neumann, and the 'Forgotten Father of the Computer' John Vincent Atanasoff - among others - it does a pretty good job of mapping the Code Masters, from Alan Turing who gave us the algorithm, to Klaus Knopper the one-man band behind Knoppix. They're mostly here - the inventors of C, C++, C#, Java, and Python; example. There are a couple of programmers who have snuck in more for their business acumen than their programming talent, like the former Powersoft/Sybase CEO Mitchell Kertzman but otherwise the 40 nominees seem pretty 'pure' and the overall idea is to narrow the list down to the Top Twenty Software People in the World - a phrase invented by Tim Bray, who blogged that Adam Bosworth would be among them. Be careful what you wish for when blogging - looks like Bray's about to find out who the community thinks the the 19 others are."

jg21 writes "Although this reader-compiled list of software development's giants omits pioneers like George Boole, John Louis von Neumann, and the 'Forgotten Father of the Computer' John Vincent Atanasoff - among others - it does a pretty good job of mapping the Code Masters, from Alan Turing who gave us the algorithm, to Klaus Knopper the one-man band behind Knoppix. They're mostly here - the inventors of C, C++, C#, Java, and Python; example. There are a couple of programmers who have snuck in more for their business acumen than their programming talent, like the former Powersoft/Sybase CEO Mitchell Kertzman but otherwise the 40 nominees seem pretty 'pure' and the overall idea is to narrow the list down to the Top Twenty Software People in the World - a phrase invented by Tim Bray, who blogged that Adam Bosworth would be among them. Be careful what you wish for when blogging - looks like Bray's about to find out who the community thinks the the 19 others are."

Eventh writes "The final release of Python 2.4 was just released. Python 2.4 is the result of almost 18 month's worth of work on top of Python 2.3. New features are, but not limited to, function decorators, generator expressions, a number of new module and more. Check out Andrew Kuchling's What's New In Python for a detailed view of some of the new features of Python 2.4. "

Eventh writes "The final release of Python 2.4 was just released. Python 2.4 is the result of almost 18 month's worth of work on top of Python 2.3. New features are, but not limited to, function decorators, generator expressions, a number of new module and more. Check out Andrew Kuchling's What's New In Python for a detailed view of some of the new features of Python 2.4. "

Eventh writes "The final release of Python 2.4 was just released. Python 2.4 is the result of almost 18 month's worth of work on top of Python 2.3. New features are, but not limited to, function decorators, generator expressions, a number of new module and more. Check out Andrew Kuchling's What's New In Python for a detailed view of some of the new features of Python 2.4. "

Pan T. Hose writes "The long awaited release of Parrot 0.1.1 "Poicephalus" has been finally announced on perl.perl6.internals newsgroup and perl6-internals mailing list simultaneously by Leopold Toetsch followed by an announcement on use Perl by Will Coleda and now also on Slashdot." (Read on for a list of changes since the last release, as well as a number of useful links.) Pan T. Hose continues "The most important changes since the previous version 0.1.0 (code-named 'Leaping Kakapo' and released in February) are:

• Python support: Parrot runs 4/7 of the pie-thon test suite
• Better OS support: more platforms, compilers, OS functions
• Improved PIR syntax for method calls and <op>= assignment
• Dynamic loading reworked including a "make install" target
• MMD - multi method dispatch for binary vtable methods
• Library improvement and cleanup
• BigInt, Complex, *Array, Slice, Enumerate, None PMC classes
• IA64 and hppa JIT support
• Tons of fixes, improvements, new tests, and documentation updates

The amazing project which no one had any idea would go so far from the original April Fool's Joke by Simon Cozens (also posted on Slashdot on April 1, 2001) to really unite Perl and Python one day (not to mention Tcl, Scheme, Forth and Ruby, to name just a few) is now available for download from CPAN and via CVS. Those who are not up-to-date with Perl 6 mailing lists can read This Week in Perl 6 weekly summaries by Piers Cawley to have some idea on how's the project been going in the last two years. It's important to read Apocalypses, Exegeses and Synopses together with RFCs and Parrot Design Documents for better understanding of the underlying rationale, especially the superiority of register-based Virtual Machines (like Parrot VM) over stack-based one (like JVM) for modern (dynamically-typed) OO languages with multiple inheritance, operator overloading, traits, roles and much, much more. Parrot Docs, FAQ and examples are also very helpful. This is a very important step in the direction of Perl 6 which we are all looking forward to."

GnuVince writes "Paul Graham has posted a new article to his website that he called "The Python Paradox" which refines the statements he made in "Great Hackers" about Python programmers being better hackers than Java programmers. He basically says that since Python is not the kind of language that lands you a job like Java, those who learn it seek more than simply financial benefits, they seek better tools. Very interesting read."

Party_Pack writes "ESRI, the makers of the GIS (Geographic Information System) Arc/INFO (as well as ArcView) and its more modern COM based successor ArcGIS are once again, in the just released ArcGIS 9, giving their users the choice of a fully featured scripting language rather than just the hideously complex ArcObjects/full programming language model they currently offer. Interestingly they have chosen to move away from their tradition of proprietary languages such as AML and Avenue and use Python. This is great news for both ArcGIS users and the Python community, as ESRI will hopefully feed any development work back into the community."

Lansdowne writes "Jim Hugunin, the creator of Jython, has released an incredibly fast implementation of Python for Microsoft .NET and Mono called IronPython. Here's his PyCON 2004 presentation, including some benchmarks. He concludes: 'Python is an extremely dynamic language and this offers compelling evidence that other dynamic languages should be able to run well on this platform.'"

securitas writes "eWEEK Labs' Jim Rapoza reviews open source Plone 2.0 Web publishing portal / content management software and raves about the Zope/Python-based system. He liked it so much it garnered an Analyst's Choice award, beating out a commercial portal suite, Traction's TeamPage 3.01, reviewed in the same issue. The Plone 2.0 release was mentioned a couple of weeks ago on Slashdot."

Slashback tonight brings you updates and corrections from recent and ongoing stories, including (this time around) non-silver silver paste, the return of the Orkut, Mike Rowe and his not-so-epic battle with Microsoft (one last time, I hope), the future of Zip for Microsoft Windows, and more. Read on below for the details.

Funny name, well-executed idea. YourMother writes "After almost 4 days of being offline, the social network Orkut is back online. The Orkut development team has been working nonstop since bringing it down on Sunday afternoon and quite a few new security features have been implemented to protect users information. Within the first 48 hours it was up, it gained almost 100,000 users, growing many times faster than other social networks like Friendster or Tribe. Did Google hit the social network bulls-eye?"

glinden points to a story with some more information about those security holes. "From the article, 'Sources close to Google suggest widespread XSS (cross-site scripting) hacks forced the closure of the service. It isn't clear how much personal data or communication was disclosed.'"

Playmate. Playmate, playmate playmate. An anonymous reader writes "A week after an appeals court ruling revived a Playboy Enterprises Inc. trademark infringement lawsuit against Netscape Communications Inc., the companies have reached a settlement in the case (See a ZDNet report) The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. This puts an end to a closely watched case in the search engine advertising field. Several other lawsuits over misuse of trademarks in search engine ads are still in place. Google e.g. is embroiled in a lawsuit with Luis Vuitton regarding keyword-based ads in France and asked for a California court's ruling to back its trademark policy for AdWords after facing the threat of a lawsuit from American Blind & Wallpaper Factory Inc."

You have to admire such brave nomenclature. Michiel Frackers writes "Thanks for the link to my site, I got 3 gigabyte of traffic in a few hours! If I would have known, I would have written something in English. I have added an update about the Strangeberry product and its relation to Tivo at the URL you linked to.

I also included a link to my private blog (as www.frackers.com is more about my work in media & technology). Hopefully this clarifies some things for your readers, I did not intend to make this some kind of quest or game at all: it's just that I promised Arthur and his colleagues not to disclose what they are exactly doing, as you will understand."

And Anonymous joe writes with this link to an intriguing bit of Strangeberry speculation at the Register.

Nokia to port Python to Mobiles, not Perl An anonymous reader writes "Nokia was mistaken. In fact, El Reg reports that Python, not Perl, is the preferred language for scripting on its smartphone platforms. The availability of a Python implementation for mobile phones is part of a broader plan, including a JVM-based BASIC interpreter."

However, the Register article linked says that Perl is being considered, it's just that Python is being looked at as the primary language.

I wouldn't trust their pearls, either. Blade Leader writes "OCZ has issued a recall of OCZ Ultra 2 thermal paste after the Overclockers.com article on their lack of silver content. They blame the lack on their supplier, and claim they will be pursuing legal action."

A piece of history (or at least a piece of somethin' ...) Artemis writes "Searching along E-Bay and MikeRoweSoft.com I noticed that Mike Rowe has decided to sell the Microsoft Cease-and-Desist Letters and WIPO book he received on E-Bay. He is selling the WIPO book with the 25-page letter received from Microsoft's lawyers on January 14/2004.This inch-thick book contains copies of web pages, registrations, trade marks, other WIPO cases, emails between me and Microsoft's lawyers and much more. There are 27 annexes filled with information. This package also comes with the 25-page complaint transmittal coversheet that was sent with the inch-thick book."

What's wrong with gunzip, tar? whitefox writes "CNet News is reporting that PKWare & WinZip have settled their differences and will maintain Zip file compatibility for the foreseeable future with each supporting the other's security extensions. In addition, PKWare will include its SecureZip in the code it licenses to other software makers. This is good news in deed for users and developers alike!"

Ursus Maximus writes "Eagerly awaited by many, this book reached bookstores just after Christmas, and updates the 1999 edition. Learning Python is O'Reilly's introduction to Python programming and at 591 pages, this is a major upgrade to the 366 page original. Furthermore, the Python language has undergone extensive improvements and additions in the last five years, and the new book does a good job of covering these changes." Learning Python 2nd Edition author Mark Lutz & David Ascher pages 591 publisher O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. rating 10 reviewer Ursus Maximus ISBN 0596002815 summary An introduction to Python programming

Python is a dynamic, interpreted, object oriented language used for both scripting and systems programming. Python is known for being easy to learn and use, while also being powerful enough to be used for such projects as Zope and the Chandler project. Its growing popularity is also based on its reputation for fostering programmer productivity and program maintainability. One drawback sometime cited is its relatively slow execution speed compared to compiled languages such as C.

For myself, I have probably read too many books about Python, but that is because I am an amateur hacker who learns programming slowly, and I find that reading several books about the same topic, covering the subject matter from different angles, allows me to better absorb the material. For me, this was a good review of the core language and a welcome refresher course on the newer aspects introduced in versions 2.2 and 2.3. For anyone who is new to Python and wants to learn from the ground up, this book would be a great place to start.

Mark Lutz is an authority on Python and one if its leading teachers, with both Learning and O'Reilly's Programming Python to his credit, as well as the courses and seminars he teaches professionally. In updating the original version, which was already very good, Mark has polished the chapters on the core language to a nearly perfect level, while his co-author David Ascher has done the same on the more advanced aspects of the book. In addition, Mr Lutz has benefited from extensive feedback from students and readers, and his explanations therefore anticipate common misunderstandings. Each chapter is accompanied by a problem and exercise section and answers are included at the back of the book.

A major addition to the new edition is a chapter on "Advanced Function Topics," including list comprehensions, generators and iterators. Python is sometimes used with a functional programing style almost similar to Lisp, although to List purists that may sound like heresy. The recent versions of the language have significantly upgraded Python's support for the functional style. Functions cover three chapters in the 2nd edition instead of just one.

Another major change since the first edition is extended coverage of Modules, which now occupies four chapter instead of just one. Python modules are a high level package structure for code and data, and they help facilitate code reuse. Yet another addition is coverage of Python's "new style classes." Coverage of classes and object oriented programming has been greatly expanded and now includes five whole chapters and almost 100 pages. Coverage of exceptions now is expanded to three chapters.

If you have been considering learning Python, now would be a great time since this new book is the perfect introductory text. If you already know Python and have read the first edition of Learning Python or another introductory text, then this book may not be essential since the new language features are covered pretty well on the web in various places, and you might be better advised to read one of the other fine books on non-introductory aspects of Python. But this book is about as good an introduction to the language as you are likely to find. The book does not cover all of the Python libraries nor many other topics, but it does briefly touch on the major libraries, frameworks, gui toolkits, and community resources.

If you want to learn the core Python language quickly, this may be your best bet. Learning Python only covers the basics, but it is deep in information on what it does cover. Well written, understandable, and in a very logical arrangement, this book is densely packed with info.

I have often found myself returning to the original book, and the new book will now fill this role. It is deep in information, well written, and a joy to read. For an experienced programmer who is just learning Python, it may be possible to thoroughly learn everything about the core language in one reading of this book. For relative newbies, it will be an often-used resource.

To read more reviews of books about Python, visit the Python Learning Foundation. You can purchase the Learning Python, 2nd Ed. from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

PSF writes "The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced the release of version 2.3.1 of the Python programming language. This minor release introduces a number of enhancements based on two months of experience since release of version 2.3. For more information see www.python.org/2.3.1."

PSF writes "The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced the release of version 2.3.1 of the Python programming language. This minor release introduces a number of enhancements based on two months of experience since release of version 2.3. For more information see www.python.org/2.3.1."

PSF writes "The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced the release of version 2.3.1 of the Python programming language. This minor release introduces a number of enhancements based on two months of experience since release of version 2.3. For more information see www.python.org/2.3.1."

PSF writes "The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced the release of version 2.3.1 of the Python programming language. This minor release introduces a number of enhancements based on two months of experience since release of version 2.3. For more information see www.python.org/2.3.1."

Qa1 writes "Guido von Rossum, creator of Python, was recently interviewed by the folks at O'Reilly Network. In this interview he discusses his view of the future of Python and the Open Source community and programming languages in general. Some more personal stuff is also mentioned, like his recent job change (including the Slashdot story about it) and a little about how he manages to fit developing Python into his busy schedule."

An anonymous reader writes "Nineteen months in the making, Python 2.3 has just been released. With a plethora of changes since version 2.2, this release is definately worth the upgrade. Be sure to read the Release Notes and the Highlights file for more information."

An anonymous reader writes "Nineteen months in the making, Python 2.3 has just been released. With a plethora of changes since version 2.2, this release is definately worth the upgrade. Be sure to read the Release Notes and the Highlights file for more information."

An anonymous reader writes "Nineteen months in the making, Python 2.3 has just been released. With a plethora of changes since version 2.2, this release is definately worth the upgrade. Be sure to read the Release Notes and the Highlights file for more information."

An anonymous reader writes "Nineteen months in the making, Python 2.3 has just been released. With a plethora of changes since version 2.2, this release is definately worth the upgrade. Be sure to read the Release Notes and the Highlights file for more information."

VladDrac writes "Guido van Rossum, the author of the Python programming language, announced at OSCON last night that he's leaving zope.com, to work for a new startup called 'Elemental Security', founded by Dan Farmer (known from several security tools such as Satan). Guido leaving Zope.com will also probably mean that he will be no longer involved in Zope3 development, but hopefully he'll have more time to spend on Python development." Guido says that he's excited about his new employer, but that nothing substantial will change about Python as a result of the move. "It's just that I'll be working from the West coast." Python is "already quite secure," he says, and will be the basis of an upcoming security product ("just getting started") from Elemental.

Ursus Maximus writes "If you have read an introductory book or two about Python programming, but you are far from being an expert, then you will benefit a lot from reading this book. If you are a competent programmer in any other language, you will benefit from this book. If you are an expert Python programmer, you will also benefit from this book." Ursus Maximus's review continues below. Text Processing in Python author David Mertz pages 520 publisher Addison Wesley rating 10 reviewer Ursus Maximus ISBN 0321112547 summary How to use Python to process text.

As you probably know, there are many good introductory texts about Python. This is not one of them, for this is an advanced book, but not an inaccessible one. David Mertz has a unique style and focus that we have become familiar with from his series of articles on the IBM Developer Network. Dr. Mertz is more interested in facilitating our learning process than in lecturing us, and rather than fill his pages with impressive examples designed to illustrate his expertise, he gently guides us by offering subtle yet important examples of code and analysis that makes us think for ourselves.

He has a special talent for programming in the functional style, and this is a great introduction to that style of Python programming. Thus, this is also a good guide to using the newer features introduced into Python in the last few revisions, which often facilitate the functional style of programming.

The text includes, in an appendix, a 40 page tutorial covering the basic Python language. This tutorial is, like the book, unique in its approach and is worthwhile even for experienced Pythonistas, as it sheds light on some of the underlying ideas behind the syntax and semantics, and it also illustrates the functional style of programming, which is sometimes quite useful when doing text processing. And, despite its many other virtues, this is a book about text processing.

Chapter 1 covers the Python basics, but with a particular eye towards those features most critical and useful for text processing. Chapter 2 covers the basic string operations as found in the string module and the newer built-in string functions. Chapter three is about Regular Expressions, and, although I am shy about regexes because of their relative complexity, I am very glad to have read this chapter and will no longer be intimidated when regexes are the correct approach to take! Chapter 4 is on Parsers and State machines, which are important for processing nested text, as in everyday HTML, XML and the like. This chapter is not as esoteric as its title may sound to relative newbies (like myself), as it does offer useful ideas and principles for dealing with HTML. How much more useful can a topic be than that? It is true that a deep understanding of this subject may be beyond myself and other relative duffers, but this chapter has much to offer those like me and I am sure much more to offer professionals.

Chapter 5 is on Internet tools and techniques, and this a good example of how text processing touches every important area of computer programming. We manipulate text for email, newsgroups, CGI programs, HTML and many other aspects of net programming. A good summary of XML programming is included, as well as useful synopses of other Python internet modules, from a text processing point of view.

Appendix A is the aforementioned selective and short review of Python basics. Appendix B is a ten page Data Compression primer that is quite educational. Appendix C offers the same good service for Unicode, and Appendix D covers the author's own software, a state machine for adding markup to text, which is backed up by his extensive web site that has a lot of free software to support those doing extensive text processing. Lastly, Appendix E is a Glossary for technical terms from the book. This is very much an educational book, and would be suitable for classroom work at the University level, beyond the introductory programming level; in fact, as part of a curriculum to teach programming using Python at the University level, this would be an excellent text for the second course.

One of the highlights of the book is that each chapter is concluded with a problem and discussion section. These are of the highest quality I have encountered in computer texts. Rather than overwhelming the reader with a large number of problems, the author has obviously given a lifetime of thought in coming up with a few key problems that are meant to stimulate thought, creativity, and ultimately understanding and growth in the reader. I will be coming back to the problems often, as they cannot be absorbed quickly anyway; they require thought. These would be most useful in a classroom environment; but as they are accompanied by excellent discussion material, and backed up by the author's web site, the individual reader will be well served also.

The book is more than the sum of its parts. It will be a most useful reference source for when I am doing various text related tasks for some time to come, and it was also a delightful and educational quick read in the here and now. It also amply illustrates the centrality of text processing in all areas of computer science, and I am confident that the book will be useful and educational for all programmers, whatever their area of expertise.

To sum it all up, this book is educational. It is also beautifully bound and printed, and excellently written. I rate it five stars, my highest rating, and heartily recommend its purchase.

You can purchase Text Processing with Python from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Ursus Maximus writes "If you have read an introductory book or two about Python programming, but you are far from being an expert, then you will benefit a lot from reading this book. If you are a competent programmer in any other language, you will benefit from this book. If you are an expert Python programmer, you will also benefit from this book." Ursus Maximus's review continues below. Text Processing in Python author David Mertz pages 520 publisher Addison Wesley rating 10 reviewer Ursus Maximus ISBN 0321112547 summary How to use Python to process text.

As you probably know, there are many good introductory texts about Python. This is not one of them, for this is an advanced book, but not an inaccessible one. David Mertz has a unique style and focus that we have become familiar with from his series of articles on the IBM Developer Network. Dr. Mertz is more interested in facilitating our learning process than in lecturing us, and rather than fill his pages with impressive examples designed to illustrate his expertise, he gently guides us by offering subtle yet important examples of code and analysis that makes us think for ourselves.

He has a special talent for programming in the functional style, and this is a great introduction to that style of Python programming. Thus, this is also a good guide to using the newer features introduced into Python in the last few revisions, which often facilitate the functional style of programming.

The text includes, in an appendix, a 40 page tutorial covering the basic Python language. This tutorial is, like the book, unique in its approach and is worthwhile even for experienced Pythonistas, as it sheds light on some of the underlying ideas behind the syntax and semantics, and it also illustrates the functional style of programming, which is sometimes quite useful when doing text processing. And, despite its many other virtues, this is a book about text processing.

Chapter 1 covers the Python basics, but with a particular eye towards those features most critical and useful for text processing. Chapter 2 covers the basic string operations as found in the string module and the newer built-in string functions. Chapter three is about Regular Expressions, and, although I am shy about regexes because of their relative complexity, I am very glad to have read this chapter and will no longer be intimidated when regexes are the correct approach to take! Chapter 4 is on Parsers and State machines, which are important for processing nested text, as in everyday HTML, XML and the like. This chapter is not as esoteric as its title may sound to relative newbies (like myself), as it does offer useful ideas and principles for dealing with HTML. How much more useful can a topic be than that? It is true that a deep understanding of this subject may be beyond myself and other relative duffers, but this chapter has much to offer those like me and I am sure much more to offer professionals.

Chapter 5 is on Internet tools and techniques, and this a good example of how text processing touches every important area of computer programming. We manipulate text for email, newsgroups, CGI programs, HTML and many other aspects of net programming. A good summary of XML programming is included, as well as useful synopses of other Python internet modules, from a text processing point of view.

Appendix A is the aforementioned selective and short review of Python basics. Appendix B is a ten page Data Compression primer that is quite educational. Appendix C offers the same good service for Unicode, and Appendix D covers the author's own software, a state machine for adding markup to text, which is backed up by his extensive web site that has a lot of free software to support those doing extensive text processing. Lastly, Appendix E is a Glossary for technical terms from the book. This is very much an educational book, and would be suitable for classroom work at the University level, beyond the introductory programming level; in fact, as part of a curriculum to teach programming using Python at the University level, this would be an excellent text for the second course.

One of the highlights of the book is that each chapter is concluded with a problem and discussion section. These are of the highest quality I have encountered in computer texts. Rather than overwhelming the reader with a large number of problems, the author has obviously given a lifetime of thought in coming up with a few key problems that are meant to stimulate thought, creativity, and ultimately understanding and growth in the reader. I will be coming back to the problems often, as they cannot be absorbed quickly anyway; they require thought. These would be most useful in a classroom environment; but as they are accompanied by excellent discussion material, and backed up by the author's web site, the individual reader will be well served also.

The book is more than the sum of its parts. It will be a most useful reference source for when I am doing various text related tasks for some time to come, and it was also a delightful and educational quick read in the here and now. It also amply illustrates the centrality of text processing in all areas of computer science, and I am confident that the book will be useful and educational for all programmers, whatever their area of expertise.

To sum it all up, this book is educational. It is also beautifully bound and printed, and excellently written. I rate it five stars, my highest rating, and heartily recommend its purchase.

You can purchase Text Processing with Python from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Ursus Maximus contributes this review of Python in a Nutshell, writing "Perhaps the best book about Python ever written, this is the perfect capstone to anyone's library of Pythonic books, and also the perfect introduction to Python for anyone well versed in other programming languages. For newbies to programming, this would still be a good second book after a good introductory book on Python, such as Learning Python by Mark Lutz." Read on for the rest of his review. Python in a Nutshell author Alex Martelli pages 636 pages publisher O'Reilly rating Excellent, superb, 5 stars reviewer Ron Stephens ISBN 0596001886 summary Complete reference book for the Python programming language

Written by my favorite author and Pythonista, Alex Martelli, this book manages to fill three roles in extremely pleasing fashion. First and foremost to me, it is a great read, straight through. Mr. Martelli's prose is always sparkling and always keeps the reader interested. No matter how many Python books you have read, you will learn some nuances from this book, and it is about the best review of the whole Pythonic subject matter that I can imagine. While there is absolutely no fluff whatsoever in these 636 pages, it still makes for rather easy reading because the explanations are so clearly thought out and explored as to lead one gently to understanding, without in any way being verbose. It is obvious that Alex Martelli took his time and put in sufficient thought, effort, and intellectual elbow-grease to make this work a classic for all time.

Secondly, this book is the ultimate Pythonic reference book, the best fit to this role I have yet seen. You will keep this book in the most cherished spot on your book shelf, or else right at your side on your computer desk, because you can almost instantly find any topic on which you need to brush up, in the midst of a programming project.

Third, Python in a Nutshell is the most up-to-date book on Python (as of April 2003) and includes the best and most complete expositions yet on the new features introduced in Python 2.2 and 2.3. These topics are not only covered in depth, they are integrated into the text in their proper positions and relationships to the language as a whole. They are explained better here than I have seen anywhere else, so much so as to make them not only understandable to me (a duffer), but indeed so that they appear seamlessly Pythonic, as if they had been a part of the language since version 1.0. Topics explored in depth include new style classes, static methods, class methods, nested scopes, iterators, generators, and new style division. List comprehensions are made not only comprehensible but indeed intuitive.

The book is surprisingly complete. It covers the core language as well as the most popular libraries and extension modules. It is difficult to choose any one portion of the book to highlight for extra praise, as all topics are treated so well. It is a complete book, the new definitive book about Python.

Everything about this book speaks of quality. In addition to the top notch writing and editing, O'Reilly really did the right thing and published this book printed on the highest quality paper, paper so thin that the 636 pages are encompassed in a book much thinner than one would expect for such a size, but strong enough to resist wear and tear. The text is most pleasing to the eye. Holding the book, and turning its pages, gives one a feeling of satisfaction.

Any job worth doing is worth doing well. Alex Martelli and O'Reilly have done justice to a topic dear to our hearts, the Python programming language. Perhaps, in years to come, the passage of time may make this book to be no longer the most up-to-date reference on the newest features added to Python. But time can not erase the quality craftsmanship and the shear joy of reading such a well thought out masterpiece of Pythonic literature.

You can purchase Python in a Nutshell from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. Ron Stephens would also like you to check out Python City, with "27+ reviews of books about Python. 67+ links to online tutorials about Python and related subjects Daily newsfeed of Pythonic web articles, new sourceforge projects, etc."

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

An anonymous reader submits "The folks over at artima.com have finished posting a 6 part interview with Guido Van Rossum, Python's creator and Benevolent Dictator for Life. The interview covers topics ranging from Python's origins and design goals to increased productivity to runtime typing." (We linked to this series of interviews before as well.)

An anonymous reader submits "The folks over at artima.com have finished posting a 6 part interview with Guido Van Rossum, Python's creator and Benevolent Dictator for Life. The interview covers topics ranging from Python's origins and design goals to increased productivity to runtime typing." (We linked to this series of interviews before as well.)

Bill Venners writes "In this interview, Java creator James Gosling says, 'There's a folk theorem out there that systems with very loose typing are very easy to build prototypes with. That may be true. But the leap from a prototype built that way to a real industrial strength system is pretty vast.' In this interview, Python creator Guido van Rossum responds with 'That attitude sounds like the classic thing I've always heard from strong-typing proponents. The one thing that troubles me is that all the focus is on the strong typing, as if once your program is type correct, it has no bugs left. Strong typing catches many bugs, but it also makes you focus too much on getting the types right and not enough on getting the rest of the program correct.'"

Bill Venners writes "In this interview, Java creator James Gosling says, 'There's a folk theorem out there that systems with very loose typing are very easy to build prototypes with. That may be true. But the leap from a prototype built that way to a real industrial strength system is pretty vast.' In this interview, Python creator Guido van Rossum responds with 'That attitude sounds like the classic thing I've always heard from strong-typing proponents. The one thing that troubles me is that all the focus is on the strong typing, as if once your program is type correct, it has no bugs left. Strong typing catches many bugs, but it also makes you focus too much on getting the types right and not enough on getting the rest of the program correct.'"

Bill Venners writes "In this interview, Python creator Guido van Rossum states: 'I'm not particularly worried by the fact that people say you can prototype more easily in Python, but eventually the Java version makes it easier to build a robust large system. You can prototype in Python. Once you've explored the space more, you can do the planning and design that the Java version requires. If you start writing in Java knowing as little as you did when you started writing the Python version, you'll waste way more time exploring than actually building the system you'll eventually build.'"

nosse_elendili writes "These are exciting times for those of us who use Zope, because the long anticipated Zope 3 Alpha 1 has been released! For those who don't know, Zope is a powerful but somewhat obscure free, open-source, cross-platform web application server built around Python. Zope 3 is a complete rewrite and rethinking of the Zope platform so it looks and operates quite differently than previous releases. However, if you have never played with Zope before you should probably just read about Zope 3 and stick to the stable version with the Plone content management system installed. This is only an alpha release after all and Zope3 looks and acts alot like Zope2 + Plone."

Georgwe Russell writes "The Winners have been announced at the official web site. Looks like OCaml and functional programming have won again, with the 3 member TAPLAS team. There is somewhat of an upset, though. Second place goes to 3-member team Radical TOO, whose entry was written in C! In the lightning round, the virtues of Python as a quick prototyping language were shown in the lightning division's winning entry by the OaSys one-man team. Does the skill of the programmer prevail over the limitations of the language and paradigm used, or is C nearly as good a language as OCaml?"

Lao-Tzu writes "The Open Source Initiative has launched an OSI certification program. The OSI has trademarked a logo looking like a keyhole for their use as a graphical certification mark. Python.org is the first website to carry the new OSI logo." One might ask what took so long.

Lao-Tzu writes "The Open Source Initiative has launched an OSI certification program. The OSI has trademarked a logo looking like a keyhole for their use as a graphical certification mark. Python.org is the first website to carry the new OSI logo." One might ask what took so long.

An Anonymous Coward writes "It appears that the latest version of Python has been released. "We are pleased to announce the release of Python 2.2.1, on April 10, 2002. This is a bug-fix release for Python 2.2 and supersedes the 2.2 release." As far as what's new, it says,"This being a bug-fix release, there have been no exciting new features implemented since 2.2 -- just heaps of fixes.""

An Anonymous Coward writes "It appears that the latest version of Python has been released. "We are pleased to announce the release of Python 2.2.1, on April 10, 2002. This is a bug-fix release for Python 2.2 and supersedes the 2.2 release." As far as what's new, it says,"This being a bug-fix release, there have been no exciting new features implemented since 2.2 -- just heaps of fixes.""

bkuhn writes: "The FSF today bestowed its fourth annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software upon Guido van Rossum . The two other finalists were L. Peter Deutsch and Andrew Tridgell." Developing Python seems like a good reason :)

742Evergreen writes: "Another Christmas present for the developers: Python 2.2 has been released! A 'What's new' can be found here. Python 2.2 can be found here. Documentation is here."

742Evergreen writes: "Another Christmas present for the developers: Python 2.2 has been released! A 'What's new' can be found here. Python 2.2 can be found here. Documentation is here."

Russ Nelson writes "The Open Source Initiative turned down four licenses this week. Not to name names, but one license had a restrictive patent grant that only applied to GPL'ed operating systems. Another was more of a rant than a license. Another was derived from the GPL in violation of the GPL's copyright. And the fourth had insufficient review on the license-discuss mailing list (archives). The one license that did pass was the Python Software Foundation License."