Python and OpenGL

Additional Python Programming Documentation

Copyright 2010 by Stephen Vermeulen
Last updated: 2010 Oct 25		Packaging Tools





apr artima author base caching calculations causes client combines communications creating date essential exception expected extracting feeds filename functionality handle hashing head introducing languages learn libraries lists math messages michael middle monthly newer path pictatrove platform profiling re reading robots robust rules sample scripting showmedo specific sys tcp threads twice typically unofficial viewpost walk wordpress youtube 		This page contains a number of additional sources of documentation about programming using the Python computer language.

  • IPython is a more powerful interactive shell for python. This also includes support for interactive distributed and parallel computing.
  • The Python Module of the Week BLOG. The calendar module gets a work out here (some of this functionality was added after Python 2.3).
  • Building Skills in Programming, how to write your own software using Python
  • Hands-on Python, a tutorial introducing Python to beginners
  • Be Pythonic, things to be aware of if you are moving to Python from another language.
  • One man's Python success story, this is rather like my experience with the language
  • The Python paradox, and why looking for signs of Python may be a good way of sorting resumes
  • Installing software under Windows Vista will have to deal with more security restrictions, this artical discusses some of this along with locations for application data.
  • dietpython, is a version of Python that has been stripped (or starved) of non-essential libraries to result in a much smaller installation footprint.
  • Tutorial for the Python Cheese Shop
  • ShowMeDo.com has a collection of Python Programming videos, including Python for Math Teachers, a First Look at RSA.
  • An introduction to OOP using Python
  • Dive into Python is a free book on Python. It gets a Slashdot review here.
  • A list of many Python Tutorials
  • The Unofficial Python Tutorial Wiki and the Unofficial Python Reference Wiki
  • Operators and Expressions in Python, an artical by David Beazley
  • urllib2 - The Missing Manual
  • The Byte of Python, a book presented in Wiki form.
  • A Python Quick Reference Card
  • Discover Python, an introduction to Python programming from IBM
  • The Python Papers, a new (in Nov'06) publication for Python programmers, the new web address is pythonpapers.org and after a few editions it is looking pretty good.
  • Core Python Programming, by Wesley Chun, ISBN: 0132269937.
  • Python Interview Questions, Answers and Explanations: Python Programming Certification Review, by Itcookbook, ISBN: 1933804548.
  • Python for Dummies, ISBN: 0471778648, Stef and Aahz Maruch. A bit of info here.
  • A Slashdot book review of: Foundations of Python Network Programming, by John Goerzen, ISBN: 1590593715.
  • Beginning Python: from Novice to Professional, by Magnus Lie Hetland, ISBN 159059519X.
  • Python and Tkinter Programming, John E, Grayson, 2000, ISBN 1-884777-81-3. The publisher's web page for this book. This book is out of print, but an e-book version appears to be available from Manning Publications.
  • GUI Programming in Python: QT Edition, Boudewijn Rempt, 2001, ISBN: 0-97003300-4-4. This is available on the web from www.opendocs.org, and is also available in printed hardcopy.
  • 2010-Oct-25: On the arcane art of reloading Python modules. [9425]
  • 2010-Oct-23: The PyMOTW looks at the re regular expressions module. [9416] [1]
  • 2010-Sep-02: Python Koans is a test-driven tutorial on Python. [9363]
  • 2010-Aug-27: An experiment with yieldable threads in Python. [9348]
  • 2010-Jul-26: A look at command line argument parsing in Python. [9327]
  • 2010-Jul-22: Using the Python Lambda statement. [9319]
  • 2010-Jul-06: Notes on Python Date Manipulation. [9282]
  • 2010-Jun-30: The PyMOTW takes a look at the site module which is used for site-wide configuration. [9267] [1]
  • 2010-May-31: The PyTPMOTW takes a look at the PyYAML module. [9156] [1]
  • 2010-May-24: The Python's Innards series takes a look a low level details of how CPython works. [9130]
  • 2010-Mar-31: A Bit of Cheese is going to try to publish a weekly look at various Python modules. [9045]
  • 2010-Mar-31: A little bit of Python is a podcast series about recent developments in Python. Podcasts from the PyCon conference are also available on this page. [9042]
  • 2009-Nov-23: The PyMOTW takes a look at the sys modules support for the run time environment, including things like command line arguments and input/output streams. [8785] [1]
  • 2009-Nov-23: Doug Hellmann's PyMOTW has a number of index pages, including one by module name which is rather nice. [8784] [1]
  • 2009-Nov-23: The PyMOTW takes a look at the sys module's support for memory management and limits. [8698] [1]
  • 2009-Nov-12: The PyMoTW takes a look at the sys module's support for tracing your program as it runs. [8734] [1]
  • 2009-Nov-05: The PyMOTW takes a look at the sys module's exception handling features. [8709] [1]
  • 2009-Oct-09: Python Logging 101 talks about using the logging module. [8617] [1]
  • 2009-Sep-10: The tempfile modules mkstemp() function can be easily misused resulting in a file handle leak on Linux and a "cannot delete file" type error on Windows. [8506]
  • 2009-Sep-08: The PyMOTW takes a look at the fractions module which implements a class for working with numbers in rational form. [8484] [1]
  • 2009-Aug-13: The PyMOTW looks at the pydoc module. [8398] [1]
  • 2009-Aug-08: The PyMOTW looks at the various in-memory data structures that are available in Python. [8384] [1]
  • 2009-Aug-04: Regular Expression HOWTO by A. M. Kuchling, is a good tutorial for use of the "re" module. [8363] [1]
  • 2009-Jul-27: On using dictionaries, multi-sets and hashing for counting words in text processing. [8338] [1]
  • 2009-Jul-27: The PyMOTW takes a look at the various tools available for text processing in Python. [8337] [1]
  • 2009-Jul-21: The PyMOTW takes a look at the urllib2 module. This includes a number of additional references at the end of the article. [8311] [1]
  • 2009-Jul-17: How to use the Python zipfile module. Another article showing how to use zipfile. [3256] [1] [2]
  • 2009-Jul-13: The PyMOTW takes a look at Python's support for file access, this is a brief overview of finding and using files. [8253] [1]
  • 2009-Jul-13: The PyMOTW takes a look at the abc module, which is used to make an abstract base class. [8252] [1]
  • 2009-Jun-22: The PyMOTX takes a look at the robotparser module that is used to parse the robots.txt file. [8176] [1]
  • 2009-Jun-15: The PyMOTW takes a look at the gettext module which is used for maintaining message text catalogs to aid in internationalization of programs. [8148] [1]
  • 2009-May-25: The PyMOTW takes a look at the json module in Python 2.6. [8030] [1]
  • 2009-Apr-28: The PyMOTW takes a look at the new multiprocessing (part 1) module. And in part 2 looks at communication between processes with multiprocessing. And also takes a shot at implementing MapReduce with multiprocessing. [7884] [1]
  • 2009-Apr-06: The PyMOTW takes a look at the pipes module which is use to create command pipelines. This can be used to tie together commands that write their output to specific files, not just those that use stdin and stdout. [7832] [1]
  • 2009-Apr-04: The PyCon 2009 videos are being published and are available on blip.tv. [7819]
  • 2009-Mar-16: The PyMOTW takes a look at the asynchat module which is used for building asynchronous network communications protocols. [7731] [1]
  • 2009-Mar-03: Sphinx (here at the cheeseshop) is a Python tool to build documentation, typically from source code. A screencast that demonstrates using Sphinx and Doctests. Here is a note on it with some samples. Here is another example of how this is being put to use (including with Latex). Another recommendation for sphinx with sample of the setup. [5323]
  • 2009-Mar-02: The PyMOTW takes a look at the asyncore module, an asynchronous I/O handler. [7668] [1]
  • 2009-Feb-13: The PyMOTW takes a look at the pwd module which is used for reading user data from the UNIX password database. [7577] [1]
  • 2009-Jan-21: The PyMOTW takes a look at the compileall module that is used to compile Python code to byte code. [7468] [1]
  • 2009-Jan-17: A Matlab user tries to learn IronPython. [7456]
  • 2008-Dec-08: The PyMOTW takes a look at the gzip module which is used to read and write compressed files. [7311] [1]
  • 2008-Dec-03: The PyMOTW takes a look at the readline module which provides an interface to the GUI readline library. [7295] [1]
  • 2008-Dec-03: Ian Bicking talks about Decorators and Descriptors in Python. He suggests this article Introduction to Python Decorators as a good introduction. Decorators can be used to add arguments to functions. [7087]
  • 2008-Nov-18: A rather large collection of slides for a course called: Scripting for Computational Science. [7227]
  • 2008-Nov-10: The PyMOTW takes a look at the array module which can be used to handle sequences of fixed types of data. [7184] [1]
  • 2008-Nov-10: How to get to "hello world" in Python on XP in 7 minutes. A simple quick start guide. [7180]
  • 2008-Nov-03: The PyMOTW takes a look at the struct module which is used for working directly with binary data. [7134] [1]
  • 2008-Oct-26: A set of videos of the Pycon 2008 sessions have been uploaded to YouTube, these are tagged with pycon08. [7100]
  • 2008-Oct-20: The PyMOTW takes a look at the smtpd module for implementing SMTP servers. This way to the land of spam. [7057] [1]
  • 2008-Oct-14: The PyMOTW takes a look at the trace mode, this causes the Python interpreter to output what it is doing. [7020]
  • 2008-Oct-06: The PyMOTW takes a look at the smtplib which is used to implement a simple message transfer client. [6989] [1]
  • 2008-Oct-06: The PyMOTW takes a look at the pkgutil module, this contains a function that is used to modify the search path for modules. [5121] [1]
  • 2008-Oct-06: The PyMOTW takes a look at the tempfile module. [5085] [1]
  • 2008-Sep-28: The PyMOTW takes a look at the mailbox module which can be used for accessing the contents of local mailbox files. [6932] [1]
  • 2008-Sep-22: The PyMOTW takes a look at the imaplib a module that implements IPAM4 client communication functions. [6899] [1]
  • 2008-Sep-22: The Hazel Tree aspires to be a compendium of Python documentation. [6898]
  • 2008-Sep-15: The PyMOTW takes a look at the anydbm module which provides access to DBM-style databases. [6856] [1] [2]
  • 2008-Sep-14: The PyMOTW takes a look at the built in exceptions module and now that Python 2.5 deprecates string exceptions it is probably time to convert any lingering string exceptions over. [6852] [1]
  • 2008-Sep-04: The PyMOTW takes a look at the cmd module, which is used for creating command interpreters. cmd2 provides additional features for the cmd module. [6044] [1]
  • 2008-Sep-01: The PyMOTW takes a look at the profile, cProfile and pstats modules, which are used for profiling code. [6778]
  • 2008-Aug-19: The PyMOTW looks at the signal module. [6706] [1]
  • 2008-Aug-05: The Python MOTW takes a look at the webbrowser module which is handy if you want to pop up some web pages from a script for the user to review. [6637] [1]
  • 2008-Jul-28: The PyMOTW takes a look at the uuid module which implements the RFC 4122 system for making universally unique IDs. [6594] [1]
  • 2008-Jul-25: Intermediate and Advanced Software Carpentry in Python by Titus Brown, is a set of lecture notes for a course he taught at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Well worth a peek. [6578]
  • 2008-Jul-20: The PyMOTW takes a look at the base64 module. [6556] [1]
  • 2008-Jul-20: Voidspace discusses catching Python string exceptions which are a bit different from all other exceptions. [6548]
  • 2008-Jul-11: The PyMOTW looks at xmlrpclib and the SimpleXMLRPCServer modules. [6487] [1]
  • 2008-Jun-23: The PyMOTW takes a look at the warnings module that is used to deliver/control non-fatal alerts to the user of a program. [6410] [1]
  • 2008-Jun-19: A good list of free online documentation for Python. [6377]
  • 2008-Jun-16: The PyMOTW takes a look at the platform module which is used to get access to system hardware and operating system version information. [6355] [1]
  • 2008-Jun-13: A ShowMeDo video series Developing emol covers the development of a 3D molecular file viewing program. This program is developed using wxPython and PyOpenGL. [4590]
  • 2008-Jun-09: The PyMOTW takes a look at the dircache module which caches directory listings and refreshes them when the time stamp on the directory changes. [6306] [1]
  • 2008-Jun-02: The PyMOTW takes a look at the cookie module which provides tools for working with HTTP cookies on a server. [6263] [1]
  • 2008-May-25: The PyMOTW visits the contextlib module which is used with the new with statement from Python 2.6. [6228] [1]
  • 2008-May-20: The PyMOTW takes a look at the traceback module which is used to produce detailed error messages with program stack traces. A very handy thing to have in server log files. [6200] [1]
  • 2008-May-12: The PyMOTW takes a look at the heapq module which implements a min-heap sort algorithm. [6144] [1]
  • 2008-May-03: Factoring out common args to zipped generators gives some examples of generator usage (taken from a project on additive waveform synthesis). [6038]
  • 2008-May-01: Using httplib to send cookies. [6022] [1]
  • 2008-Apr-28: The PyMOTW takes a look at the functools module which provides tools for wrapping functions and other callable objects. [5991] [1]
  • 2008-Apr-25: Generator Tricks for Systems Programmers (recommended here) is a PyCon'08 tutorial presentation that covers using generator functions and expressions with examples applicable to systems programming. [5960] [1]
  • 2008-Apr-21: The PyMOTW takes a look at the filecmp module. This is useful for comparing files and directories. [5939] [1]
  • 2008-Apr-14: The PyMOTW takes a look at the < ahref="http://blog.doughellmann.com/2008/04/pymotw-fnmatch.html">fnmatch module, which is used to emulate the way the UNIX shells do filename pattern (glob) matches. This sounds a lot like the glob module. [5799] [1]
  • 2008-Apr-12: A look at Python suitable for consumption by managers. [5127]
  • 2008-Apr-07: The PyMOTW takes a look at the operator module. This module contains functions that provide the same functions as many built in operators, allowing you to use this operators in places that call for a function object. [5618] [1]
  • 2008-Mar-31: The PyMOTW takes a look at the urllib which is used for the client side of access to HTTP resources. [5364] [1]
  • 2008-Mar-23: The PyMOTW takes a look at the collections module. [5322] [1]
  • 2008-Mar-16: The PyMOTW takes a look at the datetime module which provides functions for doing date and time parsing and arithmetic. [5290] [1]
  • 2008-Mar-10: The PyMOTW visits the time module. [5246] [1]
  • 2008-Feb-24: The PyMOTW visits the imp module which is used for working with Python's import mechanism. [5151] [1]
  • 2008-Feb-05: Podcasts from PyCon2007. [5048]
  • 2008-Feb-05: The PyMOTW takes a look at the string module. [5037] [1]
  • 2008-Feb-02: Some articles comparing Python to Scheme. [5031]
  • 2008-Feb-02: Thomas Guest's Python suggested reading list and some additional suggestions from Jesse Noller. One really good book that is missing from these lists is "Learning Python" by Mark Lutz and David Ascher, see my Python Books page for this and a few more. [5030]
  • 2008-Jan-21: The PyMOTW takes a look at the hashlib module that combines the original md5 and sha modules and extends them with other hashing algorithms provided by OpenSSL. [4974] [1] [2]
  • 2008-Jan-21: Using Python's new documentation tool (Sphinx) for other things. [4973]
  • 2008-Jan-14: The PyMOTW takes a look at the threading module. [4674] [1]
  • 2008-Jan-07: The PyMOTW takes a look at the weakref module that lets you refer to a large object without preventing it from being garbage collected. These are potentially useful in object caching situations. The article also includes some informative examples on Python's garbage collection system. [4600] [1]
  • 2008-Jan-01: The PyMOTW takes a look at the mmap module which is used to map files directly into memory. [4547] [1]
  • 2007-Dec-25: The PyMOTW looks at the zipimport module which lets you load and run code that is contained in zip files. [4520] [1]
  • 2007-Dec-17: The PyMOTW takes a look at the zipfile module. [4438] [1]
  • 2007-Dec-10: The PyMOTW takes a look at the BaseHTTPServer which gives you the basis for building a custom HTTP server in Python. I have used this in a problem report tracking system for work and in the pictatrove server and the webanno server. [4404] [1]
  • 2007-Dec-03: The PyMOTW takes a look at the socketserver module, which is usful in implementing TCP/IP socket server programs. [4387] [1]
  • 2007-Nov-27: The PyMOTW takes a look at the inspect module. This module can be used for looking inside objects to see their attributes, functions and class pedigree. There is also support for examining the call stack. [4200] [1]
  • 2007-Nov-19: The PyMOTW looks at the urlparse module. [4174] [1]
  • 2007-Nov-14: How to go about re-raising exceptions. More discussion of this can be found in Re-throwing exceptions in Python, which goes into how to catch an exception at one point, perhaps logging or informing about it, then pass it somewhere else and finally re-raising it but making sure the stack trace still is for the original source. [1887]
  • 2007-Nov-06: This articlediscusses the strange case of pickling an object twice resulting in two different pickle strings. Turns out (in the comments) this is an expected behavior and there is some discussion of what pickle actually is and an example of using the dis module to take a look at the disassembled pickle string to better see what is going on. [4032] [1]
  • 2007-Nov-06: The PyMOTW looks at the shutil module used for doing file-level work. [4031]
  • 2007-Oct-21: The PyMOTW takes a look at the itertools module, this provides iterator functions for efficient looping. [3493] [1]
  • 2007-Oct-16: The PyMOTW looks at the shlex module, which can be used for parsing quoted strings, implementing shell-like syntaxes and writing domain-specific mini-languages. [3453] [1]
  • 2007-Oct-05: The Python Magazine, a monthly magazine for Python people. [2603]
  • 2007-Oct-01: Some questions about when to use super() are answered in this article about super(). [2422]
  • 2007-Oct-01: The PyMOTW takes a look at the copy module which can be used to duplicate objects (and deep trees of objects). [2421]
  • 2007-Sep-30: A good explanation of the rules behind Python's block indentation syntax. [2406]
  • 2007-Sep-30: Some notes on what to do to avoid writing Python code that sucks. [2401]
  • 2007-Sep-23: A Show Me Do video by Jeff Rush on programming Python, this is a walk through of a grep-like text pattern matching utility. [2248]
  • 2007-Sep-23: A couple of Show Me Do videos by Jeff Rush on configuring your browser to subscribe to Python related RSS feeds and searching various areas of the python.org web site. [2247]
  • 2007-Sep-13: The PyMOTW looks at the hmac module, which is used for cryptographic signatures and verification of messages. [1885] [1]
  • 2007-Sep-07: A note of rounding a floating point number to N significant digits using the string formatting function. [1636] [1]
  • 2007-Sep-07: The PyMOTW looks at the calendar module which can be used to get simple textual calendars for a given month or year as well as doing date oriented calculations. [1635] [1]
  • 2007-Sep-07: The PyMOTW looks at the glob module which is used for quickly extracting a list of files (from a directory listing) that fit a simple wild card-type pattern (but not a regex-style pattern). [1634] [1]
  • 2007-Sep-07: The PyMOTW looks at the os module, useful for things like running external processes, though cautions that there are newer ways of doing some of this. [1633] [1]
  • 2007-Sep-04: The csv module, introduced in Python 2.3, is useful for working with various types of data table text files, such as the comma separated variable (csv) format. [1629] [1]
  • 2007-Aug-29: PyMOTW looks at the optparse module [596]
  • 2007-Aug-24: The Python "module of the week" project visits the atexit() function. [579]


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