Python-URL! - 1998/11/09

by Cameron Laird - DejaNews: [1]

While Conference attendees race to cram two weeks of work and hijinks into a couple days of meetings (will the inner circle give up programming for rock-and-roll?), the stream of Pythonian results flows on.

• LDAP, CORBA, HTTP, COM, ...: programming applications over the Internet protocols becomes *fun* again with the high-level expressivity of scripting. SGML sage W. Eliot Kimber illustrates this with his delightful demonstration of Grove processing, which manages to introduce both SGML and Python in a single not-long article (see DN407593156) The XML-SIG's XBEL is a deeper manifestation of this approach. (see DN407140025) Notice that the recently-released Grail 0.5 supports XBEL (see DN407140026)
• Jim Fulton anticipates a discussion scheduled for the Conference in launching a long, detailed thread on Python (object-oriented) interfaces (thread [2]) Note the thoughtful appearances of Objective-C, Modula 3, Java, and, perhaps most profoundly, Eiffel, as sources of insight and experience.
• Bobo answers a lot of questions. This week, for example, Amos Latteir details how to to be successful with it feed- ing Personal WebServer under W95, with abundant tips applicable far beyond that particular combination (see DN408524453) Later, Paul Everitt proudly announces conditions for Bobo's future care-and-feeding (see DN409167668)
• Interesting (fast-small-...) DBMS alternatives to ODBC and SQL appear in a thread Paul Thiessen inspired (thread [3])
• Version 4.0 of IIS specifically supports Python coding of Active Server Pages (no more squashed indents) (see DN408476646)
• Python jumps to the head of the W3C class with Four- Thought's release of its DOM interface (see DN408457966)
• Daniel Blezek brings Python to the print pages of the *C++ Users Journal* http://www.cuj.com/archive/1611/
• comp.lang.tcl hosts an unusually calm comparison of the advantages of GPL and other licensing alternatives (thread [4])
• If you need Python for SunOS, make sure you first read Charles G Waldman's description of its correct generation (see DN408050129)
• Jeff Bauer elaborates the proposition that "Python's module features appear to strike a good balance between usability and namespace preservation" (see DN407065949)
• He also relates a bit of true-life experience on his instal- lation of Python for a W95 network (see DN408120485)
• Joseph Robertson passes on personal advice on migrations from Visual Basic to Python (see DN407599331)