Fri 18 May 2012

Creating QR Codes with Python

Posted by Mike under Python, wxPython
[3] Comments

The other day, I thought it would be fun to create a little program that could generate QR codes and show them onscreen with wxPython. Of course, I wanted to do it all with Python, so after a little looking, I came across 3 candidates:

I tried python-qrcode and pyqrnative since they worked on Windows as well as Mac and Linux. They also didn’t require anything except the Python Imaging Library. The pyqrcode project requires several other prerequisites and didn’t work on Windows, so I didn’t want to mess with it. I ended up taking some old code based on my Photo Viewer application and modified it slightly to make this a QR Code viewer. If I’ve piqued your interest, then read on! (more…)

 

Sat 12 May 2012

eBook Review: Modern Tkinter for Busy Python Developers

Posted by Mike under Books, GUI Toolkits, Python
No Comments

I recently bought Modern Tkinter for Busy Python Developers by Mark Roseman from Amazon and just finished it yesterday. I think it’s pretty new, but I can’t find the release date for it now. Anyway, let’s get on with the review!

Quick Review

  • Why I picked it up: I bought this book because I’d been planning to dig into other Python GUI toolkits anyway and I haven’t seen a new Tkinter book since John Grayson’s Python and Tkinter Programming
  • Why I finished it: It has a pretty good writing style, although the widgets chapters started to drag
  • I’d give it to: Anyone wanting to make their Tkinter applications look more native or learn a little about Tkinters new theming system.

(more…)

 

Mon 7 May 2012

eBook Review: Quality Python Development

Posted by Mike under Books, Python
[6] Comments

After reviewing a couple ebooks last week, I’ve been getting asked to write reviews for several other authors. I even got an offer to write Python book reviews for another website too! Crazy. Anyway, Frederic Lepied contacted me today to review his eBook, which is available on Amazon. He sent it to me as an mobi (i.e. Kindle) file. I ended up using calibre to read it as I didn’t have Kindle software handy on the machine I was using. It’s super short at approximately 42 pages, so I read it in a single sitting. Anyway, let’s get on with the review!

Quick Review

  • Why I picked it up: Primarily because the author of the book asked me to. Yes, the author gave me a copy of the book to review.
  • Why I finished it: The book was short and refreshing in the topics it covered
  • I’d give it to: This book is for the beginner who wants to expand his skills and grow into intermediate Python programming

(more…)

 

Sun 6 May 2012

Website Automation with Python, Firefox and Selenium

Posted by Mike under Python, Testing, Web
[3] Comments

An appropriate alternate title would be: How to control a web page or test your website with Python. Recently, I was given the following assignment:

1) Login to a website
2) click on a toolbar and load a specific search form
3) enter some data into one of the fields on the form and search
4) if found, click another button
5) repeat

Of course, I was supposed to do all this with Python, my favorite programming language. My first thought was to use the Mechanize package, but while I could login to the website using that, I was unable to get it to load the form. Why? Well, unfortunately the aforementioned toolbar was made using javascript and it seemed to be generating the form too. For whatever reason, the Python port doesn’t support loading javascript elements, although I did find out that the project it’s based on has a javascript plugin, so there is hope that it might eventually. Thus, I went looking for another solution and recalled that Selenium might fit the bill. In the end, it worked quite well. Since I won’t be able to show you what I did exactly because it was for an internal project, we’ll be automating Gmail instead. Let’s get cracking! (more…)

 

Sat 5 May 2012

wxPython: Adding and Removing Widgets Dynamically

Posted by Mike under Python, wxPython
[4] Comments

I keep seeing people asking about how to add or remove widgets after they’ve already started their wxPython application. This is actually something that’s really easy to do, so I decided it was time to write a simple tutorial on the subject. I have had to do this myself from time to time depending on what kind of user was accessing my program so I could show slightly different options. Anyway, let’s get started! (more…)

 

Wed 2 May 2012

eBook Review – Guide To: Learning Python Decorators

Posted by Mike under Books, Python
[4] Comments

I bought Matt Harrison’s book, Guide To: Learning Python Decorators this week to see if I could finally understand what the big deal was about decorators. I’ve decided to try reviewing this book using Doug Hellman’s method of doing a Quick Review and then a more formal in depth review for those of you hardy enough to want to read more.

Quick Review

  • Why I picked it up: Because I wanted to learn about decorators and I also wanted to see how this book compared with Harrison’s other books.
  • Why I finished it: Simply put, the book was short and I could read it in between other tasks I was doing. Also, some of Harrison’s insights about functions were really interesting.
  • I’d give it to: An intermediate to advanced Python developer that needed to do meta-programming or had to understand functions and function generators

(more…)

 

Sat 28 Apr 2012

eBook Review – Guide to: Learning Iteration and Generators in Python

Posted by Mike under Books, Python
[9] Comments

Last month around the time of PyCon USA 2012, Matt Harrison sent me a copy of his newest book, Guide to: Learning Iteration and Generators in Python. I’ve been wanting to learn more about generators anyway, so I thought this was pretty fortuitous. Sadly, it took me a month to get around to reading it. The eBook weighs in at 460 kb for the mobi (i.e. Kindle) version or 240 for the epub. We’ll take a quick look at the good and the bad after the jump. (more…)

 

Tue 20 Mar 2012

Python Books for Sale

Posted by Mike under Python
[5] Comments

I got a new job recently which requires me to move across several states, so I have decided to sell a few of the Python programming books I’ve bought the last few years. For some reason, eBay’s search is broken at the time of this writing, so I’ll just list what I’m selling here with direct links to the pages. If you’re in the market for some new or gently used Python books, then this is a good time to buy. I’m starting all the book auctions at 99 cents.

I’m also going to be selling some other stuff on there, like an Android tablet, a car stereo receiver and probably some of my DVD collection. This link is supposed to list everything I’m selling, but so far I can only get it to list two items.

 

Sun 11 Mar 2012

PyCon 2012 Videos Are Up!

Posted by Mike under PyCon
[9] Comments

The PyCon USA talk videos are finally starting to come online. You can check them out here: http://pyvideo.org/category/17/pycon-us-2012. I’m wondering why they chose this over the miro site that they’ve been using for the last few years. Maybe someone in the know can comment on that.

I noticed the streams I linked to seemed to be pretty hit or miss, so hopefully this will work better for those of you who missed out on PyCon like I did. Enjoy!

 

Fri 9 Mar 2012

Disqus Replaces Convore for PyCon 2012!

Posted by Mike under PyCon
[2] Comments

For those of you who didn’t know, Convore is out and it looks like Disqus is in: https://pycon.disqus.com/

I thought Convore was pretty interesting last year, although there were some minor issues. I’ll be interested to hear what people think of the disqus system compared to convore though.

 

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