OSoft, Inc. have released my book ‘A Byte of Python’ in Thout format. There are two aspects of Thout – one is that the Thout format is based on XHTML and second, the Thout reader software (similar to Windows .chm Help Viewer) is available for all the major platforms. I am excited about this because Thout provides some very cool functionality – for example, users will soon be able to "upload/download public notes that are placed at the point in the documentation the comment refers to".

There are currently three Python books in Thout format at the OSoft website – the official Python documentation, my book and ‘Dive Into Python’. There are lots of books in the other categories as well.

Btw, Thout software is OSI-certified open source, so it’s good to know that the Thout format itself is implicitly open as well.

Lutz Horn, Bernd Hengelein and Christoph Zwerschke have volunteered and started to translate my Python beginner’s book to German! The project is hosted at developer.berlios.de/projects/abop-german.

If you know Python and German, you’re most certainly welcome to join the translation as well. You can start just one page at a time! Please contact Lutz Horn (lutzhorn at users.berlios.de) or myself (swaroop at byteofpython.info) for more details.

Thanks to Lutz, Bernd and Christoph for taking up this effort!

Juan Shen has translated my beginner’s book on Python ‘A Byte of Python’ to Simplified Chinese! Juan Shen is postgraduate at Wireless Telecommunication Graduate School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China PR.

You can read the Chinese version online right now. More details about Juan Shen and his efforts to spread Python in China is in a appendix in the translated version. Huge hug and thanks to Juan for taking up this effort

I have redesigned ByteOfPython.info and now have a nice and clean theme based on Negen.

The theme had the right combination of the two things I look for : simple and attractive. I usually like to hack up a theme myself just like I did for my blog, but this one was too cool to let go

The content on the website has been reorganized and updated as well.

This is cool – ‘A Byte of Python‘ is the most popular link for the python tag in del.icio.us! In fact, its been bookmarked by 53 people (as of now)!

Thanks to Prem for telling me about it

Update: Its bookmarked by 119 people as of now.

I’ve been working on restructuring my book and split it into Part I – The Language and Part II – The Libraries. I am designing it such that readers can learn the language from Part I and be happy. Whenever they need to do more stuff such as GUI and databases using Python, then they can refer the appropriate chapters in Part II and get started on their programs. Of course, any interested reader can just read from cover to cover and be happy

This also means that I will be adding chapters on GUI and databases to the book (What? You didn’t get the hint??) – I’ve already started writing a database chapter and started on the DB API. There’s also another secret weapon that I am including in that chapter – something that surely raised my eyebrows when I first read about it and I’m sure it’ll do the same for you. It’s just one of the things that highlights the strengths of Python. I will keep you in suspense about it- you can read about it in the upcoming version 1.21 .

I am formally announcing the Byte of Python book mailing list. The first post is reproduced below for your convenience:

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the Byte-of-Python mailing list Its exciting to write this first post!

New version

I just released version 1.20 of ‘A Byte of Python’ [1] and with the same I would like to formally welcome you all to the Byte-of-Python mailing list [2]. This first post is mainly about the philosophy and purpose behind this mailing list. For more details, regarding the new version, please see my blog [3].

About this List

This mailing list is in simple terms, a formal way for me to seek suggestions and comments from interested readers of my book.

Let me explain, in detail, the parts of the above sentence:

• The idea of a mailing list appeals to me because it provides a formal and easy way to have discussions. There are many other advantages such as archiving, digest options, etc.

• I will be writing my views and thinking on the roadmap for my book and soliciting suggestions and comments from you, the interested reader of my book.

• You are welcome to send in your suggestions, corrections, and criticisms about the book to the list.

• Please talk only on topics directly related to the book. General questions regarding Python should be posted on the comp.lang.python newsgroup where you will get better and more informed help.

• I want to keep this list as low-traffic and as meaningful as possible. In order to achieve this, I will have moderation on for all posts to the list. So, please be patient if your post does not appear immediately on the list. If certain mails do not need the attention of the entire list and can be answered by myself, then I will personally reply back (and not forward the mail to the list).

• Moderation also helps prevents spam mails to the list (as already experienced by me).

• I think these are reasonable ‘rules’ of the list – please let me know if you are uncomfortable with any of this.

  Hope to start some interesting discussions in future.

Thanks!

Swaroop

[1] http://www.byteofpython.info/version120/ [2] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/byte-of-python [3] http://www.swaroopch.info/archives/2005/01/13/byte-of-python-revived/

Interesting trivia: The list already has 11 members (excluding myself) even before this formal announcement.

Now that the list is also open for discussion, get ready to see a lot of action regarding the book in the coming months!

The 1.20 version of ‘A Byte of Python’ is finally out – this new release has been long overdue – more than 9 months since the last release. This is the revival of the snake charmer

This new version is a rewrite of the book and I’ve improved the explanations of most of the examples and added some new examples as well.

I took most time to rewrite my DocBook setup and to write new scripts to handle the generation of the various output formats. I tried to make it a platform-independent thing by using the Java-based DocBook tools but it was simply too slow and cumbersome. xsltproc simply rocks!

Okay, getting back on track… I will be formally announcing the mailing list for the book tonight (after I reach home).

I will be writing some new chapters for the book on topics such as databases, wxPython, new style classes, and hopefully chapters on advanced topics such as metaclasses and decorators as well. It’s gonna take time and patience and lot of feedback from you guys to help me accomplish this.

I haven’t planned on how to go about all this yet. However, you can join the mailing list if you want to give your suggestions, criticisms and comments.

Sidenote: I’m really groggy now, I slept at 5 am after making many edits to the book and then doing the xsltproc dance and uploading all the stuff to ByteOfPython.info and the Ibiblio mirror.

I’ve been invited to conduct a workshop on Python at NIT (formerly REC), Calicut, Kerala. It’ll be most probably on 29th of this month (date to be yet confirmed). I’m glad to tell you that Pradeep will be joining me – we’ll be conducting an on-hands session on Python in the computer lab. I’ll be posting details on the session later.

Other speakers include Atul Chitnis and Shanker Balan.

Also, Pradeep and myself intend to hang out in Kerala after/before the event and want to go sight-seeing. Any suggestions? Which beaches are good? Any must-see destinations?

Renaissance 2005

I’ve also been invited to talk at Renaissance 2005 at Govt. Engineering College (GEC), Thrissur, Kerala next month. Here’s the brochure (in PDF form).

Note : I have been invited to both NIT, Calicut and Renaissance – I was confused between the two and wrote ‘Renaissance 2005 at NIT, Calicut.’ I apologize for the mistake.

I was using MEPIS Linux for the past 4 days after a high recommendation by Pradeep and I was remarkably surprised by the ease of install.

First of all, it acts as a LiveCD so you can test out everything before you do any install and then you then click on the Install section in the menu and it’ll install on the hard disk. Uber-cool!

However, I hit a roadblock on two things – sound wasn’t working and the Sify dialer wasn’t working. Regarding sound, I tried everything but couldn’t get it working at all…

Disappointed, I just had to switch back to Fedora since I needed a working system fast… so I installed FC3 again and now I’m back in business.. The Fedora Installation Guide was of immense help – especially the part about removing unused services at startup and using the KDE Display Manager instead of gdm. Everything looks so much better now!

Also, I have started to rewrite chapters of my book, so that I can get back in the writing groove and also improve the wordings of many parts of the book. I’m taking into consideration the huge list of corrections sent by readers that I haven’t been able to incorporate till now. You can look forward to some good improvements in the book