As a programming language, the core syntax and semantics are minimalist , but a large and comprehensive library has been developed. It supports both object oriented and functional programming, and allows for automatic memory management.

YouTube is a popular website which uses Python software. Many of the large internet companies and technology organizations like Google, Yahoo and NASA use Python for developing software. The software for generating Google site maps uses Python, but shell access is required.

Many software products use Python as a programming language. These include 3D animation packages like Maya, SoftImage , imaging software like GIMP and Paintshop Pro. It is also used for exploit development in the information security industry.

• I’ve kept the link posts from del.icio.us and the Flickr posts out of the main weblog. They show up on the side.
• They update every hour instead of each day.
• Each link or picture is its own post, upon which you can comment.
• They stay out of the main RSS feed, too. However, you can subscribe to a separate feed just for the sidebloggin’! If you’re into that kind of thing.

Because WordPress (understandably) as a really clunky way of posting by email (you have to send the email, then hit Wordpress to make it POP into the email account) and no documented REST interface, I ended up doing this using the Python mechanize module. It seemed hacky, but then I got over it.

Mechanize is pretty smooth, but unfortunately, the current nature of web forms is going to make it less useful, unless it extends to be able to execute javascript. Forms are generated now, and what’s generated is often pretty messy, with a lot of unnamed elements. That can be gotten around, though. The real problem is that, instead of having the form do the POST, submit buttons on forms are often just javascript triggers, and some javascript function creates the actual POST request.

This is what stopped me from extending my autoposting script to also drop the links into Facebook “Posted Items,” which also have no explicit API support. Then, even more people could have seen my links and my important opinions about them! I actually started to try to determine what kind of POST request the javascript in their “share on Facebook” bookmarklet generated, but then I thought: Wait. Why the hell am I doing this? And then, I stopped.

Allen was VERY accomodating and we had the article up and running within a few minutes… long before most of the other networks were aware of the story. So is the advantage of actually being here.. rather than getting a second or third hand report of the news.

I’m really excited about what Twitter is planning for the future, and even though it may be slightly laced with advertising, it still will be a big push for the platform internationally.

I’m also really excited about my new relationship with CenterNetwork. A great guy and a great team moving forward with new media and technology. Thanks Allen and looking forward to working with you again soon!

Tags: blogging, CenterNetworks, Digital Garage, guest blogger, Japan, Japan, media conference, New York, Personal, press conference, Robert Sanzalone, RSS, techmeme, Technology, tokyo, twitter

Anyways, about E3 ‘08. Pretty disappointing eh? No matter what I tell myself, I still, I suppose by some terrible habit, act like E3 is still what it used to be. If you’re a serious gamer who likes to keep his eye on the gaming pipeline, E3 could be a lot like Christmas morning. In reality, it’s now about nothing more than talking numbers and bullet points for the shareholders and mainstream news outlets.

That’s really the truth of it. My inner gamer wants to claim how full of fail all 3 press conferences were, but come on, E3 isn’t what it used to be. Nintendo announced their next big thing, and if you haven’t heard about MotionPlus, I’d look into it, because it’s awesome. Aside from that, they’re being Nintendo and not announcing games until a month or two before they ship, just like Apple does.

Technically, I am part if the gaming industry, but being on this side of the fence is still pretty new to me, so I still geek out about game announcements just like I used to, so that’s why I’m even writing about it in the first place, haha. I still tend to root for Nintendo, but I have to remember that E3 in no way represents their full target audience. The E3 PRESS CONFERENCE is for the casuals, sneaky behind the scenes interviews done by gaming sites are for us ‘core gamers.’

Besides, Nintendo works on a little bit of math that goes something like this:

Casual games = $$$
$$$ = Zelda, Metroid, Mario, etc.

So as far as I’m concerned, Nintendo can make and sell as much casual software as it wants. Besides, that leaves a big empty space for other developers to fill.

Yeah… don’t really know why I choose this post to actually put that disclaimer up on… guess it finally just hit me how many people come to this site every day, and that this really is my site as well as just a blog…

Take a look at the examples and convince yourself!

YNFVGB.com is now EverydayGamers.com - Full Site Launching end of July 2008!

About a month ago my husband told me to check out The Sims 3 teaser site. For some reason the site wasn’t working so I went to YouTube and searched for The Sims 3 trailer. Instead of finding a trailer for The Sims 3 I found a trailer for a game called Supple, which some people confused with The Sims 3. I watched the trailer and became interested so I checked out the site. On the site I read some testimonials and reviews and decided I would download the free hour-long demo. I played through the demo and instantly became addicted. My hour was up and because I really liked it I decided to buy it.

YNFVGB.com is now EverydayGamers.com - Full Site Launching end of July 2008!

In the game you play as Arin Costello, an Associate Editor for Supple Magazine. Her goal is to work hard and be promoted to Style Editor. During the game you are found competing against your coworker Hugh Chadwick who is trying for the same position. You will also meet your boss Margot Winterbottom who you must impress along the way.

YNFVGB.com is now EverydayGamers.com - Full Site Launching end of July 2008!

Supple is very similar to The Sims in the way it is set up. But like the title says, it is an interactive sitcom so it is definitly different than The Sims. During the game you have to become friends with your boss and coworker and to achieve this you’ll have to do certain things like go shopping for clothes and gifts, be social, go to the bar, take courses on the computer, drink coffee, etc. I ended up really enjoying the game and finished it on every difficulty. You never really know what to expect and that makes it interesting. Because they actually talk it makes the conversations a lot more engaging. The graphics and quality of the game aren’t that great compared to The Sims but it’s still fun if you enjoy The Sims but want more of a story behind your game.

If your interested in downloading the free 60 minute trial click the link below:

http://supplegame.com/download.html

The full version of the game doesn’t require a disk and is available to download through the site as well as the demo.

YNFVGB.com is now EverydayGamers.com - Full Site Launching end of July 2008!

We’ve included videos of each of today’s games for nostalgia’s sake or so you can see if it’s to your tastes.

This week’s new WiiWare games are:

Midnight Bowling (Gameloft, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points = $8): Plunge directly into the trendy and electric atmosphere of Midnight Bowling. With awesome playing sensations, prepare for ultra-fun gaming thanks to a new physics engine that lets you control your throws precisely and easily with your Wii Remote controller and make spectacular spins that will impress your opponents. Face up to three friends in the fun party mode, where your playing abilities will be put to the test. Whatever your experience level, launch yourself into the immersive career mode, where you will play in the trendiest bowling spots on the planet against charismatic characters that will give you a run for your money.

MadStone (Riverman Media, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points = $8): Time is short. Earth trembles as the forces of nature stir and grow restless. Can you turn the tide? In this dynamic puzzle game, you must clear the path for your elemental MadStones to reach the bottom of the screen. Blocks can be broken by striking them directly or by the force of falling objects. The novice tries frantically to break enough blocks, while the master sets up cascading collapses with only a handful of direct strikes. As two sides struggle for domination, titanic forces build, only to be unleashed in an earth-shaking final confrontation. Experience the mystical single-player journey, or challenge a friend in competitive two-player mode.

Today Capcom will also release two Mega Man 9 downloadable content packs for their recent WiiWare release!

1. Mega Man 9 Endless Attack Content Pack (300 Wii Points = $3) - Test your skills on a stage without end. Try to break the record for getting the farthest. Results will be displayed in the Rankings page. Not compatible with other Challenges.
2. Mega Man 9 Proto Man Content Pack (200 Wii Points = $2) - Play the game as Proto Man. Some of Proto Man’s abilities may differ from Mega Man’s. Proto Man has the Charge Shot ability, Power Slide ability, and a shield that he can utilize to deflect bullets at enemies. However, Proto Man also takes double damage and has double bounce back when he is hit. There is no story for Proto Man and he is not compatible with Rankings or Challenges.

This week’s new Virtual Console games are:

Mario Golf (Nintendo 64, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points = $10): Mario takes a well-deserved break from his role as the Mushroom Kingdom’s busiest hero and returns to the links for some world-class golfing action. Since no one likes to hit the fairways alone, he’s brought along a group of friends-both familiar characters and brand new ones. Choose from 10 different modes of play and six 18-hole courses in a variety of environments for a golfing experience with endless replay value. Add in fun, colorful graphics with a Mario touch (a Boo indicates wind direction), intuitive controls, incredibly deep game play and multiplayer support (taunt your opponents), and you have a game anyone will enjoy-even if you’ve never played a round of golf. Fore!

Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing (more…)

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The interesting news is that it is updated for the upcoming Python 3.0 language making it probably the first book to be released for Python 3.0.

The book is now a wiki too at www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python which means you can contribute too!

The book and wiki are now under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The Non-Commercial clause present in the previous edition of the book has been removed. It was becoming a hurdle for translators as well as people who wanted to use the book for genuinely good activities, so I decided it to drop the clause.

Since it is a wiki, volunteers can directly create their translations on the wiki. This eliminates the need to learn DocBook XML and its tools which had become a hindrance for many translators, and I’m glad to see this already bearing fruit with Eirik VÃ¥geskar starting off a Norwegian translation at www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python_nb-no:Forord.

I will soon be making a printed version of the book available as I have had many requests for this.

So back to the main question: Why an update after nearly 4 years? Two reasons.

First, because of foss.in. I dedicate this new release to the foss.in community for their spirit and enthusiasm over the years which have rubbed off on me and kept me working on the update of the book.

Second, Over the past few years, the readers’ reactions have been simply splendid:

Neil (bigdealneil-at-yahoo-dot-com) said:

“(I) got an if else to work and I can follow your tutorial, which I have never been able to do no matter who wrote the thing! you’re a genius Swaroop!”

Gao shuai (ejwjvh-at-126-dot-com) took the effort taken to write an email to me in English:

dear swaroop:
I am a chinese student.My name is gao shuai,”gao”is my family name.
Although your book is easy to understand,but my english is bad,so what I read is the chinese edition.
I have made some programs now.It is interesting.I like it very much.

I emailed back and he replied:

Mr Swaroop:
I am exciting to read your back. _(Editor’s note: I think he means ‘reply’)_
Tt is the first time that I talk to foreigner though the internet.
I saw that you have your own mail ab.I think You’re a great man.
Thanks for your back!(*^_^*)
regards,
gaoshuai

The interesting part is that this student somewhere in China was being benefited by this book and he “talked to a foreigner through the internet for the first time” and that person was me. It was truly humbling.

People are even putting ads for it, and I had no clue about it until I chanced upon it myself:

If that wasn’t enough, I found out that there are 8-9 university courses officially using the book, including Harvard and other institutions. And apparently even NASA is using the book in their Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Users have suggested that it should replace the official tutorial but I really wouldn’t go as far as that

Recently, I had sent a sneak peek for the book’s group of readers and within a day, I had the first 10$ donation by Horst JENS. I remembered seeing that name somewhere, so I searched my emails and found this:

On Mar 4, 2007:

“Hello Swaroop, i teach a class of (3) Children how to program in Python. Just want to thank you because without your ‘a byte of python’ (that i read one year ago) i would maybe never have begun to code in python and consequently would never leaved my old job to become a Python teacher.”

A person in Vienna, Austria changed his career from a sys-admin job which he didn’t like, to teaching children about programming, a job he loves. Wow! Again, this is so humbling. I could have never imagined that a small book can make such a difference.

The point is that I’m grateful for all these people writing to me and sharing their delight and stories. The book is still alive and kicking thanks to all these people.

Happy programming!

© swaroop for Swaroop C H, The Dreamer - India, Life, Technology, 2008. |
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In case you haven’t heard…Steam holds the future of PC gaming in it’s hands. Steam is brought to us by Valve, makers of the Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike series’. Steam is an online community very similar to Xbox Live but available on your PC. No, it’s not like Windows Live, it’s much better. Steam lets you do many things such as create friends lists, buy games, download demos, download videos, join groups, create profiles, and much, much more. The best part about it is that it’s FREE. You can see what a friend is playing just like what you see on Live. Steam is very convenient as it lets you download and launch games right through it. I had heard about Steam a while back and finally decided to give it a try. Too bad it took me this long as it is making me want to get back into PC gaming this instant. The first game we bought through Steam was Peggle. I just browsed through the store and found the game I wanted and downloaded the demo. Once finished with the demo I downloaded the full game. If you own a PC (like everyone else on the earth) then I suggest you download it and set up an account now. No credit card is necessary. Even if you don’t necessarily have a gaming computer Steam gives you everything from the hardcore to the casual so trust me…you need to download it now. Through Steam I’ve created a profile which you can visit and add me as a friend. I also created a group specifically for fans of YNFVGB. Just set up an account with Steam then come and join the YNFVGB group. In this group I will post announcements and also host chats. We have a YNFVGB chat room right in there. I’ve also included a link to the group in the left sidebar under “YNFVGB Links.” I am very excited to have finally downloaded Steam and I hope you guys will take the time to try it out and join the YNFVGB group. I’d love to get some chat rooms going every once in a while so we can just talk about games all night. Expect a chat to take place in the very near future.

To make it even more convenient I’ve included the actual Steam program which you can download right from this page->Download Steam