my review from amazon: This book is more like an encyclopedia than a cookbook - each section is introduced and written in a different style and different sections are stronger and more cohesive than others. Some sections are bursting at the hinges and others feel like they are incomplete (like the algorithms section).
The introductions to each chapter alone are worth the price of the book. Each introduction is written by a different Pythonic luminari, such as Fredrik Lundh, Tim Peters, Alex Martelli, Guido van Rossum and many others. These literary pieces are insightful, humorous and excellent.
I love python, it follows Albert Einstein's principle Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler . As such, this book plays a valuable addition to my library. However, if you are just starting out I would recommend getting a different book first.
By the way - Redhat ships with python 2.2 you just need to change your #!/usr/bin/python to #!/usr/bin/python2
Unix users - particularly admins generally sit on a high horse. Particularly when it comes to scalability.
Why is Solaris/AIX so scalable? Research institutions, governments and others bought machines - and essentially paid for the scalability work. Have a look at what most research institutions are buying now. Linux. What unix are the big banks exploring running on their main frames? Linux.
The product manager for AIX said in 2 years, if Linux matured he could see it replacing AIX. Do you think they would charge any less for their AIX machines? Nope. Think of IBMs cost savings!
With GNOME on the desktop and GNU utilities under the hood - Solaris will look more and more just like another linux distro.
I have been looking at systems to manage workflow for a customer. Proprietary solutions we've looked at include Lotus Domino(on Linux)/ Exchange 200x / and Lotus Workflow (runs on Linux).
The advantage of Lotus Workflow is it very high level and thus allows you to concentrate on improving the business processes. Unfortunately it is very expensive (10K server and $60 per client)
Seems to me that a lot of Slashdot users don't value open source software. I find it troubling when statements such as its "its open for downloading... so I don't want to pay anything."
Mandrake has always survived (as has redhat and all the distros) on an army of volunteers. And GPL'd software will always be available for download. That is just the nature of the beast. So why should these leachers get the source code for free? This is why the GPL came about (vs a BSD style license)- essentially to combat leaching.
I am sure that if they don't contribute money, they certainly don't contribute code. If you don't believe in open source software - why not just switch over to the MSDN website and leave slashdot alone?
The story I am sure is different outside of the US. In China for example, 99.999 percent of people pirate. Seeing as the developing world is becoming a larger and larger percent of world population - I am sure overall student piracy is on the rise....
Put the prices up.... and we will get more open source software on the market.....
Honestly, I think many US students may buy the software - elsewhere it is different. In China for example, 99.999 percent of people pirate. Seeing as the developing world is becoming a larger and larger percent of world population - I am sure overall student piracy is on the rise....
Nothing worse than slashdot users complaining about how much better XP/OSX is as a desktop. (typically from users who don't value free software.) Suggestions for improvement are much better.
The average office worker uses their computer as a glorified typewritter.
1. Beef up the fonts - including the anti-aliasing stuff
2. Improve OpenOffice Abiword etc - Word Processing is key.
3. Maybe a spreadsheet front end to mysql or something.
4. Improve some basic end user stuff - supermount
5. a Hypercard/FilemakerPro/visual basic style application for end users to develop applications. Something so that even kids can develop gui applications that are easily tied to databases and can be turned into web services.
6. IBM to start porting their desktop apps to linux(Smartsuite/Notes). I know, they aren't the best - but they would give large companies the vote of confidence they need to start rolling out linux on the desktop.
I actually think mysql could be a killer application for corporations trying to cut down on relational database licensing costs. For example, every accountant gets mysql to punch the numbers and do forecasts.
1. Hard to find techs Yes it harder to find technical people who know sun over windows or linux.
2.Web serving on sun box is a waste of money Why buy one big box when many cheaper ones will do...? Save the big box for the Database server. Tux is much faster than anything from Sun.
3. Not many applications available Most of the good sun stuff is the ported open source stuff that you have to go to ibiblio to download. Applications were mostly written on intel (SAP, Oracle) on linux and then ported to sun. Free stuff is almost all available for linux first.
4. Incompatibility across versions The linux distros now have more in common than the big linux distros. They are more posix compliant as well. For example Sun threads and sun libraries are not portable to AIX or any other OS.
5. Propretary hardware Yup - have a look at Suns network cards... nice but they ain't standard pci cards. 5,000 each for the nice ones. I have found the big vendors scr*w you at every turn. Memory upgrade - 50x the x86 price...
6. OK for database servers I still see the need. That is until postgresql or some other db vendor supplies fast distributed rdbms.
Actually I don't have anything against sun - they are probably one of the more "open" unix vendors. But they play the game just like everyone else.
Yes democracy/dissention can slow growth - eg look at Quebec in Canada... The truth is comparisons of China and Russia are an apples and oranges affair. Russia has never truly experienced capitalism, while for China communism was a fleeting love affair.
Read any Chinese newspaper and you can see why they don't want to give their citizens access to the knowledge of the world. Chinese are being shafted by their government. Death penalty for stealing gas? China has it - so that the organs of the thief can be sold.
But who can expect big business do do anything about it... they are out to make money - as their shareholders want them to.
I believe that programming languages are much like human languages in that some are better able to explain ideas more than others are. Like Inuit (Eskimo) languages have 10-15 words for snow, some computer languages are better able to express some ideas than others.
The flip side to this is that people's brains work better with different languages. Having learned/studied French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish and English - my brain works better with some languages than others. Similarly I believe there are those people whose brains work better with Perl than Python.
But I find python syntax "fits in my brain" better than perl. For others who find dynamically typed languages difficult to fit their heads around perhaps neither (Java?) is better. I find a good naming convention more important than using strict typing. Standardized ways for calling classes, etc nicer. Fewer built in mystery variables ($@#...), Less clutter important as well as not forcing OOP (Java).
Python is fairly flexible in coding styles (functional, OOP, Xtreme Programming etc), has a nice class library, is fairly easy to extend, and is not controlled by a corporate entity(Sun/Microsoft). Most importantly, discovering it got me excited about programming again.
1....your choice may create significant problems at month/year end when one of my many slightly to nearmost completely computer illiterate colleagues tries to either download/extract your data or wants you to generate a file that to import into either Excel...
Very simple - add an export to excel button in the application.
2. Your CFO/controller will have a lot easier time finding people who can work in the Windows environment to do the basic grunt work of entering invoices, bills, and time so the system can print checks
Web browser.... HELLO?
3. As much value as I see in open source, I would have a very hard time accepting an open source accounting solution as a CPA auditing a set of books.
SAP +SAPDB + Linux... is that open enough? It is for many German companies...
As is discussed elsewhere you can run iNotes for Outlook and still use your beloved Outlook client...
(Linux support in RNext). Or you can use a browser - for one of the best browser based email systems. Personally I like IMAP clients under linux and the Notes client under winblows.
sql-ledger is fairly good but the interface needs to be cleaned up a bit -looks a bit clunky.
The printing needs cleaning up. maybe to pdf and then to print.
And it really should be secure... therefore a book keeper could be located off site...
Tsteamship was not a great improvement over the first sailing ships. Up until the end of the 19th century, most of the world's ocean freight was still carried by sail. What eliminated the sailing ship was that it takes several years to learn to be a sailor, while it takes 10 minutes to learn to shovel coal into the steamship boiler. The sailing ships died because they couldn't get crews and the steamship crews are unskilled. You need only a very few skilled people on a steamship. To furl and unfurl sails is highly skilled But the railroad immediately created mobility, on the land, which had never existed.
Journalists typically like to call it a desktop "war".
Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop and there is no competition in sight. Of course this will not sell magazines... So journalists must create a competition involved.
Microsoft could purchase Redhat, Suse and mandrake with a day or two of their monopolistic profits.
Saying that there is a war simply is trying to sell more magazines and make it into a topic when really it isn't.
Its kind of like saying "that great little restaurant on the corner loosing the world wide battle with McDonalds".
Journalists typically like to call it a desktop "war". In fact Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop and the only potential competition in sight is a great little operating system written by enthusiasts.
Microsoft could purchase Redhat, Suse and mandrake with a day or two of their monopolistic profits. Saying that there is a war simply is trying to sell more magazines and make it into a topic when really it isn't.
Its kind of like saying "that great little restaurant on the corner is going to take out McDonalds".
I love linux - but even IBMs focus on it is vague.
The community should focus on the areas which are lacking and bringing more young programmers into developing applications for linux.
Get someone to learn to program on linux and they will be likely to support it.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice - but the progress (when compared with hardware improvements is minimal)
How much better aree they than a libretto (2.5 lbs)
+ a watcom input device?
tablet pc
* Weighs more
* Has a bigger screen
* Worse Battery life
* Doesn't allow me to run linux
* Hard to compile software
Stripping off the "Wow" aspect - does it
really allow me to do that much more?
Anthony
The point is the software isn't that much better. Of course the hardware has increased tremendously.
Indeed - the ruthless lying reminds me of the actions of big tobacco. The movie The Insider dramatises the issue.
my review from amazon:
This book is more like an encyclopedia than a cookbook - each section is introduced and written in a different style and different sections are stronger and more cohesive than others. Some sections are bursting at the hinges and others feel like they are incomplete (like the algorithms section).
The introductions to each chapter alone are worth the price of the book. Each introduction is written by a different Pythonic luminari, such as Fredrik Lundh, Tim Peters, Alex Martelli, Guido van Rossum and many others. These literary pieces are insightful, humorous and excellent.
I love python, it follows Albert Einstein's principle Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler . As such, this book plays a valuable addition to my library. However, if you are just starting out I would recommend getting a different book first.
By the way - Redhat ships with python 2.2 you
just need to change your #!/usr/bin/python to
#!/usr/bin/python2
Anthony
1. Try http-tunnel and you should be able to get through without problems
2. Kazaa doesn't support linux so who cares others will fill the void (gnutella)
3. People will just revert to other methods - so it doesn't stop them it just limits their efficiency at copying for a while....
Anthony
Particularlly the scalability issues mostly have been resolved -if not in the 2.4.18 kernel then in the 2.5 dev series.
Anthony
Unix users - particularly admins generally sit on a high horse. Particularly when it comes to scalability.
Why is Solaris/AIX so scalable? Research institutions, governments and others bought machines - and essentially paid for the scalability work. Have a look at what most research institutions are buying now. Linux. What unix are the big banks exploring running on their main frames? Linux.
The product manager for AIX said in 2 years, if Linux matured he could see it replacing AIX.
Do you think they would charge any less for their AIX machines? Nope. Think of IBMs cost savings!
With GNOME on the desktop and GNU utilities under the hood - Solaris will look more and more just like another linux distro.
Anthony
http://xminc.com/anthony/
I have been looking at systems to manage workflow for a customer. Proprietary solutions we've looked at include Lotus Domino(on Linux)/ Exchange 200x / and Lotus Workflow (runs on Linux).
The advantage of Lotus Workflow is it very high level and thus allows you to concentrate on improving the business processes. Unfortunately it is very expensive (10K server and $60 per client)
How does Zope compare? (I love python).
Anthony
http://xminc.com/anthony
Seems to me that a lot of Slashdot users don't value open source software. I find it troubling when statements such as its "its open for downloading... so I don't want to pay anything."
Mandrake has always survived (as has redhat and all the distros) on an army of volunteers. And GPL'd software will always be available for download. That is just the nature of the beast. So why should these leachers get the source code for free? This is why the GPL came about (vs a BSD style license)- essentially to combat leaching.
I am sure that if they don't contribute money, they certainly don't contribute code. If you don't believe in open source software - why not just switch over to the MSDN website and leave slashdot alone?
Anthony
The story I am sure is different outside of the US. In China for example, 99.999 percent of people pirate. Seeing as the developing world is becoming a larger and larger percent of world population - I am sure overall student piracy is on the rise....
Anthony
Put the prices up .... and we will get more open source software on the market.....
Honestly, I think many US students may buy the software - elsewhere it is different. In China for example, 99.999 percent of people pirate. Seeing as the developing world is becoming a larger and larger percent of world population - I am sure overall student piracy is on the rise....
Anthony
Nothing worse than slashdot users complaining about how much better XP/OSX is as a desktop. (typically from users who don't value free software.) Suggestions for improvement are much better.
The average office worker uses their computer as a glorified typewritter.
1. Beef up the fonts - including the anti-aliasing stuff
2. Improve OpenOffice Abiword etc - Word Processing is key.
3. Maybe a spreadsheet front end to mysql or something.
4. Improve some basic end user stuff - supermount
5. a Hypercard/FilemakerPro/visual basic style application for end users to develop applications. Something so that even kids can develop gui applications that are easily tied to databases and can be turned into web services.
6. IBM to start porting their desktop apps to linux(Smartsuite/Notes). I know, they aren't the best - but they would give large companies the vote of confidence they need to start rolling out linux on the desktop.
I actually think mysql could be a killer application for corporations trying to cut down on relational database licensing costs. For example, every accountant gets mysql to punch the numbers and do forecasts.
1. Hard to find techs
Yes it harder to find technical people who know sun over windows or linux.
2.Web serving on sun box is a waste of money
Why buy one big box when many cheaper ones will do...? Save the big box for the Database server. Tux is much faster than anything from Sun.
3. Not many applications available
Most of the good sun stuff is the ported open source stuff that you have to go to ibiblio to download. Applications were mostly written on intel (SAP, Oracle) on linux and then ported to sun. Free stuff is almost all available for linux first.
4. Incompatibility across versions
The linux distros now have more in common than the big linux distros. They are more posix compliant as well. For example Sun threads and sun libraries are not portable to AIX or any other OS.
5. Propretary hardware
Yup - have a look at Suns network cards... nice but they ain't standard pci cards. 5,000 each for the nice ones. I have found the big vendors scr*w you at every turn. Memory upgrade - 50x the x86 price...
6. OK for database servers I still see the need. That is until postgresql or some other db vendor supplies fast distributed rdbms.
Actually I don't have anything against sun - they are probably one of the more "open" unix vendors. But they play the game just like everyone else.
my 2 cents worth................
Democracy may hinder economic development - but who wants to live under an oppressive regime?
The children of China's elete all want to move move to the United States.
Yes democracy/dissention can slow growth - eg look at Quebec in Canada... The truth is comparisons of China and Russia are an apples and oranges affair. Russia has never truly experienced capitalism, while for China communism was a fleeting love affair.
Read any Chinese newspaper and you can see why they don't want to give their citizens access to the knowledge of the world. Chinese are being shafted by their government. Death penalty for stealing gas? China has it - so that the organs of the thief can be sold.
But who can expect big business do do anything about it... they are out to make money - as their shareholders want them to.
I believe that programming languages are much like human languages in that some are better able to explain ideas more than others are. Like Inuit (Eskimo) languages have 10-15 words for snow, some computer languages are better able to express some ideas than others.
The flip side to this is that people's brains work better with different languages. Having learned/studied French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish and English - my brain works better with some languages than others. Similarly I believe there are those people whose brains work better with Perl than Python.
But I find python syntax "fits in my brain" better than perl. For others who find dynamically typed languages difficult to fit their heads around perhaps neither (Java?) is better. I find a good naming convention more important than using strict typing. Standardized ways for calling classes, etc nicer. Fewer built in mystery variables ($@#...), Less clutter important as well as not forcing OOP (Java).
Python is fairly flexible in coding styles (functional, OOP, Xtreme Programming etc), has a nice class library, is fairly easy to extend, and is not controlled by a corporate entity(Sun/Microsoft). Most importantly, discovering it got me excited about programming again.
Take this one step further. Remove all tools in the classroom. We should be like the greek philosophers. Walking, talking and ... nothing more.
I love users that say there is no corporate se
for linux. the SAP accounting client works
And lets face it the US is lagginbehind plas
like Germany in option....
I haven't tried it - but according to
http://www.gldialtone.com/AcctgTableObjects.htm
The db schema are fairly good. It is a Java based accounting system.
1. ...your choice may create significant problems at month/year end when one of my many slightly to nearmost completely computer illiterate colleagues tries to either download/extract your data or wants you to generate a file that to import into either Excel...
.... HELLO?
... is that open enough? It is for many German companies...
Very simple - add an export to excel button in the application.
2. Your CFO/controller will have a lot easier time finding people who can work in the Windows environment to do the basic grunt work of entering invoices, bills, and time so the system can print checks
Web browser
3. As much value as I see in open source, I would have a very hard time accepting an open source accounting solution as a CPA auditing a set of books.
SAP +SAPDB + Linux
As is discussed elsewhere you can run iNotes for Outlook and still use your beloved Outlook client...
(Linux support in RNext). Or you can use a browser - for one of the best browser based email systems. Personally I like IMAP clients under linux and the Notes client under winblows.
Yes its called iNotes. AIX and Solaris are supported - Linux is supported in the Next version
sql-ledger is fairly good but the interface needs to be cleaned up a bit -looks a bit clunky.
The printing needs cleaning up. maybe to pdf and then to print.
And it really should be secure... therefore a book keeper could be located off site...
Tsteamship was not a great improvement over the first sailing ships. Up until the end of the 19th century, most of the world's ocean freight was still carried by sail. What eliminated the sailing ship was that it takes several years to learn to be a sailor, while it takes 10 minutes to learn to shovel coal into the steamship boiler. The sailing ships died because they couldn't get crews and the steamship crews are unskilled. You need only a very few skilled people on a steamship. To furl and unfurl sails is highly skilled But the railroad immediately created mobility, on the land, which had never existed.
Journalists typically like to call it a desktop "war".
Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop and there is no competition in sight. Of course this will not sell magazines... So journalists must create a competition involved.
Microsoft could purchase Redhat, Suse and mandrake with a day or two of their monopolistic profits.
Saying that there is a war simply is trying to sell more magazines and make it into a topic when really it isn't.
Its kind of like saying "that great little restaurant on the corner loosing the world wide battle with McDonalds".
Journalists typically like to call it a desktop "war". In fact Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop and the only potential competition in sight is a great little operating system written by enthusiasts.
Microsoft could purchase Redhat, Suse and mandrake with a day or two of their monopolistic profits. Saying that there is a war simply is trying to sell more magazines and make it into a topic when really it isn't.
Its kind of like saying "that great little restaurant on the corner is going to take out McDonalds".
I love linux - but even IBMs focus on it is vague.
The community should focus on the areas which are lacking and bringing more young programmers into developing applications for linux.
Get someone to learn to program on linux and they will be likely to support it.
Anthony