The Mouse Vs. The Python

This week’s Python news covers new modules, updates to old modules, a newish Python Magazine (no, not that one!), an update on what’s going on with the new wxPython and more!

• “TurboGears Joins the Pylons Project” (Alt title: TurboGears Becomes TurboPyramid). I think the title says it all…and no, they didn’t really rename the project.
• wxPython’s “Project Phoenix” gets an update – this gives an update on how Robin Dunn is moving away from SWIG to make it easier to do documentation and the Python 3 port.
• Michael Foord’s new “e” module makes a debut…read all about it on his blog
• PET: Issue #1 – English translation of a magazine created by the Argentina Python Users Group. Yes, this is kind of old news, but I thought it was really cool and it needs YOUR support!

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• The PSF blog talks about high schoolers using Python to program robots under the guidance of Vern Ceder
• PyCrypto gets a Python 3 port courtesy of Thorsten Behrens. Check out the thread and download your copy to help find any bugs!

That’s it for this week. Next time we’ll be in 2011! That’s amazing! Anyway, I hope you have a nice holiday and you’ll let me know of any Python news that I should talk about for the next post. Thanks!

A lot of websites are doing year-end retrospectives this week, so I thought you might find it interesting to know which articles on this blog were the most popular this year. Below you will find links to each article along with the page view count I got from Google Analytics:

1. A Simple Step-by-Step Reportlab Tutorial, 9,709 page views, posted 03/08/2010
2. Another Step-by-Step SqlAlchemy Tutorial Part 1, 7,746 page views, posted 02/03/2010
3. Another Step-by-Step SqlAlchemy Tutorial Part 2, 4,858 page views, posted 02/03/2010
4. Manipulating PDFs with Python and pyPdf, 4,511 page views, posted 05/15/2010
5. Python 101: Introspection, 4,473 page views, posted 10/14/2010
6. wxPython: Grid Tips and Tricks, 3,476 page views, posted 04/04/2010
7. wxPython: Creating a Simple MP3 Player, 3,401 page views, posted 04/20/2010
8. Python and Microsoft Office – Using PyWin32, 3,323 page views, posted 07/16/2010
9. wxPython and Threads, 3,183 page views, posted 05/22/2010

It would seem that SqlAlchemy and Reportlab are pretty popular topics. Are there any articles about either of these cool packages that you think I should write? As you can see, wxPython makes it into the top ten 3 times! What should I write about next regarding wxPython?

This upcoming year, I plan to write about some of the other GUI toolkits. Which one do you think I should do first? Tkinter, PySide, PyGUI or something else? What packages or standard libraries do you think I should cover? Feel free to let me know via the comments below or via my contact form (link at top). I’m looking forward to another year of Python tinkering and writing and I hope you are too! Thanks for your readership and encouragement this year!

I thought it might be fun (and self-motivating) to create a weekly or bi-weekly series on interesting Python / Tech news items. I realize this is pretty unoriginal, but I like the idea of creating a regular “column” and I’m hoping it will help me stay in the writing groove. Ned Batchelderr does this sort of thing from time-to-time too, so feel free to check his out as well. I’ll include some comments so you know what your getting and what I think about the topic, if anything. (more…)

At least, that’s what the reader’s of Linux Journal think. I agree. What do you wonderful guys and girls think is the best?

Hat tip to Steve Holden

Earlier this week, there was a discussion on the wxPython IRC channel about how to store objects in wx.ListBox. Then later on that day, there was a question on StackOverflow about the same thing, but in relation to the wx.ComboBox. Fortunately, both of these widgets inherit from wx.ItemContainer and contain the Append method, which allows you to associate an object with an item in these widgets. In this article, you will find out how this is done. (more…)

Today I received an email from the O’Reilly School of Technology that was touting their new “Python Programming Certificate”. It appears to be an online set of four courses created by Steve Holden, current Chairman of the Python Software Foundation and owner of Holden Web.

Here is what their website says about the four courses:

The first course introduces the Python language, and by the end of the second you have created graphical user interfaces, accessed a relational database and analyzed email messages. The third class increases your language mastery by explaining some of the secrets of the interpreter “under the hood”. The fourth rounds out whole experience, providing you with a holistic knowledge of Python that will leave you ready to continue your programming career confident in your command of Python.

And here are the four course titles:

• Python 1: Beginning Python
• Python 2: Getting More Out of Python
• Python 3: The Python Environment
• Python 4: Advanced Python

The certificate is actually issued by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I was unable to discover if one could CLEP out of any of the classes or not for a reduced price. Anyway, this is an FYI to all you aspiring Python Professionals that would like to be “certified”.

To my knowledge, this is the first and ONLY Python Certification program. As I recall, Steve Holden mentioned that people were wanting Python Certificates a couple of years ago in his column in the now defunct Python Magazine.

Back in 2006, Manning released the excellent wxPython in Action book by Noel Rappin and Robin Dunn (creator of wxPython). This is still a great book and I wholeheartedly recommend it to people that want to increase their understanding of wxPython. However, Packt Publishing has just released the first new wxPython book in over four years. It’s called wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook by Cody Precord (creator of Editra). There’s an ebook version of each of these books at their respective publisher’s websites.

I plan to review Precord’s book once I’ve finished reading it. He’s been pretty active on the wxPython mailing list, helping people (including me) learn the ins and outs of wxPython. If you like wx as much as I do, I hope you’ll support him and the wxPython community by buying the book. Packt gives part of the purchase price of the book back to the project that it’s about, which is pretty cool. They’re also having a Python book sale on the Packt website (hat tip to Robin Dunn on that one).

MySQL for Python By Albert Lukaszewski Amazon Packt

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When I originally started this blog, it was mostly a brain dump on my part so I wouldn’t forget how I did something cool with Python. Later on, I decided to use it to also document what I considered under-documented portions of wxPython. If my posts drew enough interest, I would also re-work the post into a wiki page on the wxPython wiki. (more…)

Almost any computer power user will want to use keyboard shortcuts (AKA: accelerators) to get their work done. Fortunately for us, wxPython provides a way to accomplish this very easily using an Accelerator Table via the wx.AcceleratorTable class. In this article we will look at a couple examples to see how this is accomplished. (more…)