0.6 External Resources

0.6.1 General Resources

A good clearinghouse for resources and links related to this book is the book's Web site. Over time, I will add errata and additional examples, questions, answers, utilities, and so on to the site, so check it from time to time:

<http://gnosis.cx/TPiP>

The first place you should probably turn for any question on Python programming (after this book), is:

<http://www.python.org/>

The Python newsgroup <comp.lang.python> is an amazingly useful resource, with discussion that is generally both friendly and erudite. You may also post to and follow the newsgroup via a mirrored mailing list:

<http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list>

0.6.2 Books

This book generally aims at an intermediate reader. Other Python books are better introductory texts (especially for those fairly new to programming generally). Some good introductory texts are:

Core Python Programming, Wesley J. Chun, Prentice Hall, 2001. ISBN: 0-130-26036-3.

Learning Python, Mark Lutz & David Ascher, O'Reilly, 1999. ISBN: 1-56592-464-9.

The Quick Python Book, Daryl Harms & Kenneth McDonald, Manning, 2000. ISBN: 1-884777-74-0.

As introductions, I would generally recommend these books in the order listed, but learning styles vary between readers.

Two texts that overlap this book somewhat, but focus more narrowly on referencing the standard library, are:

Python Essential Reference, Second Edition, David M. Beazley, New Riders, 2001. ISBN: 0-7357-1091-0.

Python Standard Library, Fredrik Lundh, O'Reilly, 2001. ISBN: 0-596-00096-0.

For coverage of XML, at a far more detailed level than this book has room for, is the excellent text:

Python & XML, Christopher A. Jones & Fred L. Drake, Jr., O'Reilly, 2002. ISBN: 0-596-00128-2.

0.6.3 Software Directories

Currently, the best Python-specific directory for software is the Vaults of Parnassus:

<http://www.vex.net/parnassus/>

SourceForge is a general open source software resource. Many projects Python and otherwise are hosted at that site, and the site provides search capabilities, keywords, category browsing, and the like:

<http://sourceforge.net/>

Freshmeat is another widely used directory of software projects (mostly open source). Like the Vaults of Parnassus, Freshmeat does not directly host project files, but simply acts as an information clearinghouse for finding relevant projects:

<http://freshmeat.net/>

0.6.4 Specific Software

A number of Python projects are discussed in this book. Most of those are listed in one or more of the software directories mentioned above. A general search engine like Google, <http://google.com>, is also useful in locating project home pages. Below are a number of project URLs that are current at the time of this writing. If any of these fall out of date by the time you read this book, try searching in a search engine or software directory for an updated URL.

The author's Gnosis Utilities contains a number of Python packages mentioned in this book, including gnosis.indexer, gnosis.xml.indexer, gnosis.xml.pickle, and others. You can download the most current version from:

<http://gnosis.cx/download/Gnosis_Utils-current.tar.gz>

eGenix.com provides a number of useful Python extensions, some of which are documented in this book. These include mx.TextTools, mx.DateTime, severeral new datatypes, and other facilities:

<http://egenix.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html>

SimpleParse is hosted by SourceForge, at:

<http://simpleparse.sourceforge.net/>

The PLY parsers has a home page at:

<http://systems.cs.uchicago.edu/ply/ply.html>