News (37)
Getting ready for the Python breakage
If Google starts behaving oddly later this year, it might not be due to too many YouTube videos of Britney Spears losing it or a stealth attack by Microsoft's minions, but because of a forthcoming change to the Python programming language. Read more »
Flaws found in open source codes
A project funded by the US Department of Homeland Security has praised improvements in open source security, while outlining some common errors. Read more »
Python 2.6 released, marches towards 3.0
The Python Software Foundation today released version 2.6 of the popular language, a release that lays the groundwork for the language-changing Python 3.0 release. Read more »
PHP, Python, Samba get security tick of approval
Perl, PHP, Python and Samba have been commended for improving security in a report analysing over 250 open-source projects. Read more »
Google open sources 'Protocol Buffers'
Google has open sourced an internal development tool called 'Protocol Buffers', a data description language that forms a basic part of the operation of the company's vast computing cluster. Read more »
Python gets faster
The 'Need for Speed' coding sprint aimed to make various improvements in Python's execution speeds. Read more »
PHP, Perl and Python pass Homeland Security test
Coverity, which creates automated source-code analysis tools, announced late Monday its first list of open-source projects that have been certified as free of security defects. Read more »
Greenpeace goes open source in collaboration push
Greenpeace is developing an online collaboration platform to mobilise climate change, based entirely on open-source technologies. Read more »
BBC opens up its code
Software developed by the broadcaster's researchers has been collated in a new section of the BBC's Web site. Read more »
Google takes open source back to school
Google Highly Open Participation Contest is a global program that is an analogue of the Google Summer of Code program (SoC) targeted at high school students. Read more »
Features (46)
Huffman coding in Python
We'll show you how to implement Huffman encoding, which is useful when dealing with small sets of items, such as character strings, in Python. Read more »
Generating functions rather than lists in Python
There are situations where list comprehensions are useful, but also situations where you're better served by using some other form. In this article we'll take an example of where a function factory is the better choice. Read more »
Python in the enterprise: Pros and cons
Python has developed quite a following among a small-but-growing cadre of self-described Pythonistas. This article highlights the pros and cons of building enterprise-class application in Python. Read more »
A Quick Start to Python
With the final release of Python 2.5 we thought it was about time Builder AU gave our readers an overview of the popular programming language. Builder AU's Nick Gibson has stepped up to the plate to write this introductory article for beginners. Read more »
Python priority queues - the heapq module
The heap is an integral component in many algorithms -- a data structure that keeps elements organised so that it is always easy to find the smallest value. We'll show you how you can use the heapq module to implement heaps in Python in just a few lines of code. Read more »
Partial function application in Python
Python is not an inherently functional language, but with the help of the functools library you can write some programs in a functional style. One of the key tools do to writing functional code is partial function application, which is available through the functools module. Read more »
Parsing data from the Web in Python
Builder AU's Nick Gibson runs through the development of a quick program to parse data from the Web. Read more »
Reading zip archives in Python
Zip is the name of a popular file compression algorithm, which lets you both combine multiple files into a single archive and store them on disk using less space. We'll show you how you can open and read zip files in your Python scripts. Read more »
Less painful getters and setters using properties in Python
It's a popular design guideline to require class attributes to be managed by methods, usually referred to as getter and setter methods. These methods increase the safety of your attributes, but come at a cost of simplicity and verbosity. With Python properties, you can have it both ways. Read more »
Writing and appending to zip archives in Python
Following up from last week's article on reading zip archives, we show you how you can create your own archives using Python. Read more »
Blog (9)
AppEngine: Google's Python boost
-- I'm sure I am not the only person who will be learning a thing or three about Python due to AppEngine curiosity -- for that, Python should give Google thanks. Read more »
'Tis the season for Python hacking
-- Python founder and benevolent dictator Guido van Rossum, now of Google, announced on the Python developer lists the second annual Python Sprint at Google. The result should be an initial alpha of the Python 3000 interpreter. Read more »
No, you can't have private attributes in Python
-- Is the lack of privacy a real shortcoming of the language, or is our judgment clouded by the old conventions of C++ and Java? Why do we need private variables anyway -- at what point does defensive programming become paranoia? Read more »
Make money from free code
-- The Open Source Developers conference began Wednesday morning at Monash University in Melbourne. Read more »
Bloated code is bad for working families
-- It's hard to argue with large and bloated as adjectives, but streamlined is debatable. MinWin comes in at a hefty 25MB and for that price you don't even get graphical output. Read more »
CodeGear Q&A
-- CodeGear is the new name for Borland's developer tools business. Builder AU spoke to CodeGear about the handover and direction of the developer tools business under the new banner. Read more »
Do you trust data in the cloud?
-- Cheap hosted storage, app engines, and hosted code libraries. Can you really trust your data, or your client's data in the magical Web 2.0 cloud? Read more »
How to manage a team of geniuses
-- Hiring a team of developers and techies that are smarter than you is inevitable. As a manager how do you cope with this and keep things on track? Read more »
Aussies bringing Ruby to .NET
-- Developers at the Queensland University of Technology are currently working on an innovative project to create a compiler for the Ruby language that runs on the .NET Common Language Runtime. Read more »
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Microsoft prescribes more RESTDetails have begun to emerge about the next versions of Visual Studio and Windows Server this week -- and the message from Redmond is to REST up Read more »
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With news that REST will play a big part in the next version of the .NET Framework, it is timely to take a look at ADO.NET. Read more »
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Spellr.us needs a new dictionaryOne of the only Australian start-ups to present at the recent round of conferences in the US was Sydney-based spellr.us, which has launched a Web-based tool to check and monitor websites for spelling mistakes. Read more »
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Net Neutrality, Ballmer and bad dress -- Club Builder
Visting Club Builder this week: Steve Ballmer to speak in Australia, local ISPs say Net Neutrality is an American problem and we look at the best dressed from Tech.Ed.
