Last night’s Atlanta Python Meetup included several interesting presentations. Living so far outside of Atlanta, it isn’t easy to make it down for as many of the meetings as I would like, but it was definitely worth the effort last night. We had a larger than usual crowd, due to the fact that Google was sponsoring pizza and providing speakers, all apparently part of their current recruiting drive.
Cary Hull of Google talked about twisted.
The previous installments covered process parameters and input/output. This week I will look at some of the functions for working with files and directories.
Read more at pymotw.com: os/index.html#file-descriptors
I have been experimenting with various productivity hacks lately. I feel like I’m already fairly productive, based on tracking the amount of work I accomplish week-to-week. So instead of trying to do more, I’m trying to maintain the same level of output with less effort (and hopefully time).
One of the top tips I have seen repeatedly is to reduce the amount of time spent checking email, and only check it a couple of times per day.
The previous installment covered process parameters. This time we’ll cover some of the input/output features provided by the module.
Read more at pymotw.com: os/index.html#pipes
Via Jesse Noller, I came across Steve Howell’s SimplePrograms page in the Python wiki. What an excellent idea!
It’s a perfectly concise reference for program structure and common usage patterns. It isn’t anywhere close to as exhaustive as the Python Quick Reference (can anything 59 pages long qualify as a “quick” reference?) or the Python Phrasebook (another recent discovery, I need to pick up a copy) – but that’s the point.
The os module provides a wrapper for platform specific modules such as posix, nt, and mac. The API for functions available on all platform should be the same, so using the os module offers some measure of portability. Not all functions are available on all platforms, however. Many of the process management functions described in this summary are not available for Windows.
Read more at pymotw.com: os
The locale module is part of Python’s internationalization and localization support library. It provides a standard way to handle operations that may depend on the language or location of your users. For example, formatting numbers as currency, comparing strings for sorting, and working with dates. It does not cover translation (see the gettext module) or Unicode encoding.
Read more at pymotw.com: locale
I recently came across a few articles by Esther Schindler on telecommuting which struck a chord with me.
The first, “Getting Clueful: Seven Things the CIO Should Know About Telecommuting”, is directed at managers of telecommuters. It covers the benefits to the company of having telecommuters (cost savings, productivity, etc.), potential pitfalls (not everyone can manage themselves well enough to work remotely, ), and how to cope with them. She places a heavy emphasis on building trust in the manager/employee relationship, especially through communication.
Ms. PyMOTW sent me a link to the survey UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information & Library Science is conducting called “Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation”. If you blog, you might want to go participate. They ask thoughtful questions, and it only takes 5-10 minutes.