Wingware recently announced the first public beta release of Wing IDE 101, a free scaled back edition of Wing IDE that was designed for teaching introductory programming courses. It is released to the general public to help others teach with or learn Python.
Mark Lutz, one of the most well known names in Python, tells us why he feels Python is now a major programming language. He speaks about the things he likes about Python and the various areas where Python is being used today. He also elaborates on why Python seems like the right answer to some major issues in software development.
According to him, Python’s basic model is a simple core language, and the core doesn’t need much more. He’d like to see effort put into things like optimization and
just-in-time compilers, instead of esoteric language extensions that
may only appeal to the top 5% of the Python user base.
David Ascher is the Chief Technologist and Managing Director for ActiveState, he is also a director of the Python Software Foundation.
PythonThreads >> Q. Hi David. Could you please introduce yourself?
David Ascher >> My name is David Ascher. I’m the Chief Technologist and Managing Director for ActiveState, and also serve on the board of directors of the Python Software Foundation. I’ve been working on Python since about 1995, and have co-authored two books on Python, Learning Python and the Python Cookbook. I’ve also spent a fair bit of time in the scientific computating world, in particular with Numeric Python and PyOpenGL. Continue reading »
My primary compliment to “Beginning Python” is that it makes learning Python seem easy. .
The book covers a lot of Python basics like strings, numbers, operators, variables. It also covers advanced topics like network programming, extending Python through C/C++, threading, GUI programming and Python with XML. In the end it discusses about the new features of Python release 2.4. Last Chapter “Integrating Java with Python†covers – scripting with java applications, Jython, integrating Java and Jython, J2EE servlets in Jython. I find it useful for both python and java programmer.