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Documentation Index Current docs Beginners Guide FAQ wizard Introductions Non-English docs Hints Book list Language comparisons Guido's essays Topic guides   Email Us webmaster@python.org     © 2003 Python Software Foundation		Links to Contributed Hints and Guides Here's a collection of web pages that might be useful for Python users or developers. (See our index of on-line documentation for links to lots of stuff like this. In particular, Python topic guides provide overviews of some key areas.) If you would like to see your web page listed here, or if you find a stale link or other surprise, please drop us a line, at webmaster@python.org. Table of Contents Python Introductions General Reference Extending and Embedding Extensions Philosophy and Misc See also these local items: Guido's brief introduction The Python tutorial (which is included with the Python distribution), and Frequently Asked Questions and their answers (the FAQ) Comparisons with other languages

Python Introductions

• Guido van Rossum has assembled several informal essays about various Python concerns, ranging from programming techniques and style to comparisons with other scripting languages.

• Magnus Lie Hetland has cooked up a minimal crash-course on Python programming.

• Cameron Laird and Kathryn Soraiz wrote an introductory article about Python in SunWorld Online.

• Aaron Watters's fine Python tutorial for UnixWorld Online, The What, Why, Who, and Where of Python introduces Python's power. The first chapter of Aaron Watter's Python book also provides a great overview.

  Aaron has also contributed powerpoint slides for a one day course on Python that he put together.

• Mark Lutz wrote a seminal overview/testimonial by a convert, well before he wrote one of the original Python books.

  See also the slides Mark assembled, derived from his book, for an introductory presentation on Python.

• See Jeffrey Bauer's article, An Introduction to Python, from the January, '96 Linux Journal WWW Issue
• The Australian Unix User Group's Victorian Chapter has a nice introduction to python, Python: Yet Another Object Oriented Interpretive Scripting Language. It is in the form of a Technical Conference paper, by Enno Davids.
• See Jeffrey Shell's article, Python Does Scripts and Objects, in the February, '97 BYTE Core Technologies: Programming column.
• Konrad Hinsen is developing an introduction to Python for scientists - found in his Python for Science document. It includes some basic Python material for anyone, not just scientists.
• A Dr. Dobb's Sourcebook article on Hector includes a nice sidebar overview of Python.
• See Guido van Rossum (Python's author) (postscript) slides for a talk on Python, for the Usenix Symposium on Very High Level Languages in Santa Fe, NM, USA in October 1994.
• For an intriguing perspective, see Web Review's Jan 9, 1997 Bleeding Edge column: Python: It's Not Just For Laughs. It's by Frank Willison, the O'Reilly editor of Mark Lutz's Programming Python book, and reveals something about the community that uses Python, and what they do with it.
• Joe Strout has assembled a collection of small, easy to understand Python Scripts for newbies (and Non-Newbies).
• Russian version of GvR's tutorial for Python 1.4

General Reference

See also these local items:
• The Python Library Reference
• The Python Language Reference
• The Python 2.2 Quick Reference. The Quick Reference is also available for other versions of Python and in other formats, see the Quick Reference page.
• See a Python coding style guide, suggestions for emerging coding conventions by Guido van Rossum.
• Fredrik Lundh has collected links to Python (and other) guides, including particularly invaluable guides to tkinter.
• A work in progress, Stephan Houben is developing Basic Tkinter (PostScript), an introductory guide to the fundamentals of Tkinter use.

• (And of course, tkinter users can also refer to the online Tcl/Tk Manual Pages.
• Tobias Himstedt wrote a (german-language) article for the german magazine, iX.
• Jack Jansen created an Introduction to Python on the Mac, which contains some sample code and a step-by-step guide to creation of C-extensions for the Mac, and use of mac toolbox calls from python.
• Joseph Strout is maintaining a collection of sample Python scripts, as a reference for people new to Python.
• Sean Reifschneider has made available his examples from his tutorial at Linux Expo '98.
• David Ascher is collecting python related common tasks on his web pages.
• Michael Ryan has created Installing Python/Tkinter on Windows 95, a substantial guide (as of Python 1.4, at least) on this tricky installation process.)
• Skip Montanaro collected several handy Python tricks and hints, including some basic efficiency techniques, among other things.
• Guido presents an interesting optimization anecdote, exposing some important nuances you can encounter in optimizing an apparently simple operation.

• The Starship project's growing reference libarary.
• Cetus links to on-line Python resources.
• Andrew Kuchling has begun to edit a collection of HOWTO documents, concentrating on specific topics.
• Railroad Diagrams (PostScript) of the Python grammar (old - as of v1.2 or even 1.1!) by Kees Blom.
• Dave Mitchell has collected substantial CGI and Python expertise (contributed by him and others) in a Python CGI FAQ.

Extending and Embedding

See also these local items:
• Python Extending and Embedding tutorial
• Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator (SWIG), a tool for producing Python - and other scripting-language - wrappers around C and C++ routines.
• A draft of Extending Python, by Paul F. Dubois and Brian Yang, to appear in Computers in Physics, July/August 1996 issue.
• Jim Fulton's proposal for the design of the now-incorporated generic python object interface for Python C modules, which organizes the Python object interface into a rational abstract structure.
• Jim Ahlstrom's Extending C++ Classes with Python, from the Third Python Conference.
• David Redish collected his lessons on interfacing C++ and Python, accumulated during the course of building his PhD thesis, a neural simulator.

• Tutorial on Embedding Python apps in VB or Delphi GUIs - shows how to write a python 'engine' with a front end in VB or Delphi. Andrew Robinson.
• Chris Phoenix has written a short overview of the differences between Windows .dll's and Unix .so's.

Extensions

• Here are some much needed tkinter guides and examples:
  • Fredrik Lundh has put together a couple of tkinter guides. These are the best prospect for tkinter documentation to date (Aug, '97).
  • We have a hypertext rendering of Matt Conway's Tkinter "Life Preserver", which describes use of tkinter, the python port of the tk gui toolkit.
  • The entire collection of html docs as a gzipped tar archive
  • a gzipped, tarred postscript rendering of an older (as of tk 3.6) version
  • Some (also oldish) examples (gzipped tar file).
  • The UVA tkinter anonymous-FTP respository has miscellaneous example Tkinter scripts.

• PyGTK Tutorial, by John Finlay, shows how to use the Python interface to GTK+ to create graphical applications. GTK+ is the widget set used for GNOME, but is often used independently. GTK+ supports (at least) Unix and Windows. (Also packaged for download.)
• Numeric Python adds powerful multi-dimensional array objects to Python. These new objects give Python the number crunching power of numeric languages like Matlab and IDL while maintaining all of the advantages of the general-purpose programming language Python. See:
  • the Numerical Python tutorial, by David Ascher
  • a slightly outdated overview of the design and motivation, Extending Python for Numeric Computation, presented at the 3rd Python Workshop (or see the copy on python.org).
  • an early (Postscript) paper about Numerical Python ("Monty's more serious brother":), by James Hugunin, Konrad Hinsen, and Paul Dubois.
  • See also Konrad Hinsen's Python for Science document, including many useful examples which employ numeric python.

  Numerical Python was primarily designed and implemented by Jim Hugunin; however, there have been many valuable contributions by other members of the numerical python community, including particularly Jim Fulton's original implementation of a matrix object as a container class, and ongoing collaboration amongst the members of the PSA matrix-sig.

• Python Imaging Library (PIL) adds image processing capabilities to Python, including extensive file format support, an efficient internal representation, and powerful image processing capabilities. The core image library is designed for fast access to data stored in a few, basic pixel formats. It should be well suited as a base for a general image processing tool.

Philosophy

• In response to a question in the newsgroup, Aaron Watters wrote a succinct account of the different types of programming people do with Python.

• Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python

  Though it has nothing to do with Python, the language (except shared respect for a common legacy), this entry has three important purposes:

  1. It enables us to dignify the site with a philosophy section.
     Really, follow the link, it's by a real philosopher and talks about real philosophy.
  2. It enables us to debase the site with a shamelessly whimsical item.
     Really, follow the link, check out the philosophical positivists unverifiable-verifiability goof. (THEY know how to have a good time, ay wot?-)
  3. Um, well - two, then.