Speno's Pythonic Avocado 2005/1

2005-01-25

Guido speaks at Amazon DevCon

Since I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, here are links to notes of Guido van Rossum's presentation at Amazon DevCon.

Take care.

P.s New baby? Try photo birth announcements by Purple Stork

This post references topics: python

posted at 07:24:32 # comment [] trackback []

2005-01-21

Rails, Subways and Pypes

I've been following news of Ruby on Rails ever since it was a blip in the Python world. Ruby makes my eyes bleed too (my poor eyes!), so I'm happy to see at least one person is working on something similar in Python. I'm not sure we need "Yet Another Web Application Thing In Python". There are already so many that I'm paralyzed with indecision on which to learn. For now, I'm sticking to good old CGI. Nothing beats that.

Anyway, the python rails-like thing is called Subway, but I think it should be called Pypes. I like their parody of the rails logo however.

This post references topics: python

posted at 22:20:32 # comment [] trackback []

2005-01-13

Purple Stork - A Python Success Story

I'm delighted to introduce Purple Stork, makers of beautiful custom photo birth announcements. The proprietor is my best friend in the whole world. She "hired" me to implement their online payment processing and I was more than happy to help.

I considered several shopping cart solutions including open source ones like ZenCart and osCommerce and also a few commercial options. I rejected them as being way more than we needed. Besides, PHP makes my eyes bleed (How can you people live without namespaces?).

PayPal was attractive, but there were pieces missing from their out of the box offerings, and that's where Python came in. I wrote a CGI program in Python that handles the stuff that PayPal won't, e.g. issuing order numbers, doing form validation, and setting quantity based discounts. Thanks to Python, and its great standard library modules (cgi, subprocess, re and email to name a few), I was able to create just what was needed very easily and everyone is happy with the results. Of course, it can always be better, so the next version is already underway...

And if anyone wants to help Purple Stork rise in the google ranking, I'd appreciate it if you'd link to http://www.purplestork.com using the words 'custom photo birth announcements'. Thanks!

P.S. That was the "sekret" project I previously mentioned.

This post references topics: python

posted at 22:48:16 # comment [] trackback []

2005-01-11

BitPim Rocks!

I recently got a new LG VX 4600 phone. It's shiny, but I was resigned to another two years without being able to use iSync. Then I read about an application written in Python and using wxWindows called BitPim. One RadioShack cable and one day later, I've got my phone hooked up, imported my contact list from AddressBook, and put a wallpaper of my kids on the screen.

Even though the VX 4600 isn't officially supported yet unless you are a Telus subscriber, I was able to get it working by telling BitPim I'm using a VX 4500. I also joined the developer's list so maybe I can help get the 4600 on the list for Verizon subscribers.

In a few more days, I hope to announce the "sekret" project that I've been working on too.

This post references topics: python

posted at 12:44:32 # comment [] trackback []

One python programmer's search for understanding and avocados. This isn't personal, only pythonic.