kennethreitz.com
PEP 8 -- Style Guide for Python Code
Code should be written in a way that does not disadvantage other implementations of Python (PyPy, Jython, IronPython, Cython, Psyco, and such).For example, do not rely on CPython's efficient implementation of in-place string concatenation for statements in the form a += b or a = a + b. This optimization is fragile even in CPython (it only works for some types) and isn't present at all in implementations that don't use refcounting. In performance sensitive parts of the library, the ''.join() form should be used instead. This will ensure that concatenation occurs in linear time across various implementations.Comparisons to singletons like None should always be done with is or is not, never the equality operators.Also, beware of writing if x when you really mean if x is not None -- e.g. when testing whether a variable or argument that defaults to None was set to some other value. The other value might have a type (such as a container) that could be false in a boolean context!
Hitchhiker's Guide to Python « late.am
I first heard about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python at PyCodeConf a few months ago. It’s a fantastic idea: open source, community-driven documentation on how to do Python right: everything from how to learn Python, to how to write idiomatic code, to how to distribute your projects, to surveys of best-of-breed open source projects and libraries you can build projects and applications on top of. Many many thanks to Kenneth Reitz for creating and maintaining the project, which is hosted at GitHub. At this time, the Hitchhiker’s guide is a little rough around the edges: many sections are only outlined, and need content written; other sections may not even exist yet. We can safely consider it a first draft, or, if you prefer, an alpha. This sort of undertaking is effectively impossible for one person to maintain—one person can’t possibly know of every project, library, and idiom. Thanks to everyone who’s helping to make Python a better place!
Python Software Foundation News
PEP 20 -- The Zen of Python
Abstract Long time Pythoneer Tim Peters succinctly channels the BDFL's guiding principles for Python's design into 20 aphorisms, only 19 of which have been written down. The Zen of Python Beautiful is better than ugly. Easter Egg >>> import this Copyright This document has been placed in the public domain.
labs :: Python beginner's mistakes
Every Python programmer had to learn the language at one time, and started out as a beginner. Beginners make mistakes. This article highlights a few common mistakes, including some I made myself. Beginner's mistakes are not Python's fault, nor the beginner's. To put it another way, the mistakes in this article are often cases of "the wrong tool for the job", rather than coding errors or sneaky language traps. Mistake 1: trying to do low-level operations Python is sometimes described as a VHLL, a Very High-Level Language. This doesn't mean that it isn't possible to do these things with Python; but it's probably just not the right language for these jobs. Mistake 2: writing "language X" code in Python This is a mistake that is almost unavoidable. Some notorious symptoms of "language X" code, and the languages that may cause them: The point here is not to slam the language that you're used to (although that is always fun ;-). This one requires some clarification. Some advice
Planet Python
Software Carpentry
The Problem Many scientists and engineers spend much of their lives writing, debugging, and maintaining software, but only a handful have ever been taught how to do this effectively: after a couple of introductory courses, they are left to rediscover (or reinvent) the rest of programming on their own. The result? Most spend far too much time wrestling with software when they'd rather be doing research, but still have no idea how reliable or efficient that software is. The Solution This site presents an intensive course on basic software development practices for scientists and engineers.
File Management in Python
Introduction The game you played yesterday uses files to store game saves. The order you placed yesterday was saved in a file. That report you typed up this morning was, obviously, stored in a file as well. File management is an important part of many applications written in nearly every language. Python is no exception to this. Reading and Writing The most basic tasks involved in file manipulation are reading data from files and writing data to files. fileHandle = open ( 'test.txt', 'w' ) The "w" indicates that we will be writing to the file, and the rest is pretty simple to understand. fileHandle.write ( 'This is a test. This will write the string "This is a test." to the file's first line and "Really, it is." to the file's second line. fileHandle.close() As you can see, it's very easy, especially with Python's object orientation. fileHandle = open ( 'test.txt', 'a' )fileHandle.write ( '\n\n\nBottom line.' )fileHandle.close() Now let's read our file and display the contents:
web2py
I believe that the ability to easily build high quality web applications is of critical importance for the growth of a free and open society. This prevents the biggest players from monopolizing the flow of information. Hence I started the web2py project in 2007, primarily as a teaching tool with the goal of making web development easier, faster, and more secure. Over time, it has managed to win the affection of thousands of knowledgeable users and hundreds of developers. As a result, in 2011, web2py won the Bossie Award for best Open Source Development Software, and in 2012 it won the Technology of the Year award from InfoWorld. As you will learn in the following pages, web2py tries to lower the barrier of entry to web development by focusing on three main goals: Ease of use. Rapid development. Security. web2py is built from the user perspective and is constantly being optimized internally to become faster and leaner, whilst always maintaining backwards compatibility.
BeginnersGuide
New to programming? Python is free and easy to learn if you know where to start! This guide will help you to get started quickly. Chinese Translation/中文版入门 New to Python? Read BeginnersGuide/Overview for a short explanation of what Python is. Getting Python Next, install the Python 3 interpreter on your computer. There are also Python interpreter and IDE bundles available, such as Thonny. At some stage, you'll want to edit and save your program code. Learning Python Next, read a tutorial and try some simple experiments with your new Python interpreter. If you have never programmed before, see BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers for a list of suitable tutorials. Most tutorials assume that you know how to run a program on your computer. Some sites offer in-browser coding for those who want to learn Python: Print a cheat sheet of the most important Python features and post it to your office wall until you know the basics well. Need Help? Need help with any of this? Complete list of Beginner's Guide pages
