Python Programming

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I consider myself a still a python novice, but I've found it to be useful for quick prototypes, knitting things together, building test scripts etc. I don't use if for anything that has to have fast performance (although I understand there are good techniques for improving python performance). However, python has some elegant concepts that appeal to me for building frameworks for more complex structures.

BTW In my previous post I said I was interested in AI, but I was being sloppy, what I really should have said is that I'm interested in biologically inspired computing architectures. I also spend spare moments experimenting with Numenta's NuPIC and hierarchial temporal memory technologies.

Hi TZ,

I'm a Python newbie (oh and AS newbie) too.

My favorite IDE has to be Komodo from Activestate, as I find it to be the most elegant and snappiest, and it looks and feels like a native app on my operating system. Unfortunately it is not cheap; I hope to be able to afford a license soon, as I'm currently trying it and like it a lot.
I come from a .NET background and most of my time is spent with web stuff in C#. That's also the kind of applications I'd like to work on using Python, when I get a chance. Actually I first heard about Zope, arguably the most famous web application server (or whatever you're gonna call it) written in/for Python, which then got me interested in Python afterwards. I find the language to be very clean, easy-to-learn yet expressive and fortunately it doesn't require tons of boilerplate e. g. when writing simple tests or mockups. The other IDE I've tried is Wingware IDE, however it ran a bit slow and unstable here, though it looks more geared towards Python programmers than Komodo, which supports many different open-source languages, and they're very eager to get on the Ruby bandwaggon it seems. Then again that can be an advantage if one also writes code in other languages or stuff like (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc. As far as I know both Komodo and Wingware are available for the three major operating systems.
With regards to game programming I previously shared lau's opinion, however recently I read about the PyGame library and now I'd consider Python to be adequate for some games development. I'd love to see some of your work if you want to share.

All the best,
Xanadu

I like Python, Zope, and Plone. I've been using Plone since the early beta days (version 0.5).

I tried Plone a few times and it looks very professional, but also feels bloated and over-engineered (as in "re-inventing the wheel"). Since I'm new to Zope I thought about starting with Zope3, which is a quite different from the previous Zope, on which Plone is built. Did you have a look at Zope3 and if so what do you think about it?

Excuse me, but:

There is nothing more advanced than Lisp. Programs that write programs for you will be hard in any language, but I'd choose lisp because lisp can rewrite it's own code with macros.

Just as an example of lisps awesomeness, type this at the SBCL interpreter:
(require 'asdf-install)
(asdf-install:install 'new-library-name)
. . . ; code that uses the new library goes here.

I can't install new libraries that easily in any other programming language In C# I have to repeat myself because there are no macros. In PHP variable variables do many, but not all the things you'd want macros for. In fact, I could write variable variables using macros. Python is good, but Lisp is just awesome.

I've been away from Zope for a while (learning Ruby on Rails right now) and haven't looked at Zope3.