Python URL May 22

QOTW: "It's hard to make a mistake by having too many short and simple
functions. And much too easy to make them when you have too few ;-)"
- Thomas Bartkus

"Argh, the following is valid Python syntax: assert a is not b - XXX
in-progress"
- Armin Rigo (found on Michael Hudson's blog)

    A GREAT Python event is taking place right now:
        http://wiki.python.org/moin/NeedForSpeed/

    Python does not encourage one-liners, but when they work they are often
    beautiful and efficient, like this one for counting distinct lines in a
    file.
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/332003a1a24205d3

    Starting with Python 2.4 you may have to explicitly mask away the bits
    that used to fall off the edge of the world in previous versions.
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/54b...

    Paul Cannon is working on Noodle, a lisp flavour targeting Python bytecode.
        http://noodler.blogspot.com/2006/05/release.html

    Modules lack a __getattr__ method. However, that is not a limitation in
    practice:
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/68e0c33b843a8a64

    Mike Foord and John J. Lee have teamed to improve the "Missing urllib2
    Manual" slated to become an official Howto.
        http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/weblog/arch_d7_2006_05_20.shtml#e335

    When Python balks at printing non-ascii characters to stdout, the shell
    is likely to be the culprit, as Serge Orlov and others work out.
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/7a5...

    Dave Kuhlman has updated his FAQ concerning XML handling with Python.
        http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman/pyxmlfaq.html

    Among the folks Bruce Eckel has interviewed are Guido van Rossum
    and Jim Fulton.
        http://www.mindviewinc.com/mediacast/interviews/Index.php

    Still undecided whether you need "wxPython in Action", the new book
    written by Noel Rappin and Robin Dunn (the latter also the main developer
    of the wxPython GUI framework)? Get a feel for what to expect from this
    excerpt:
        http://www.pythonthreads.com/articles/python/incorporating-into-wxpyt...

    If you want to access only part of a pickle file cPickle has a
    fast-forward that avoids loading stuff you are not interested in.
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/d55b2e987563422a