The wxPython Google Group was discussing different methods of catching exceptions in wxPython the other day. If you use wxPython a lot, you will soon realize that some exceptions are difficult to catch. The wxPython Wiki explains why. Anyway, the fellows on the list were recommending the use of sys.excepthook. So I took one of […]
wxPython: Catching Exceptions from Anywhere Read More »
Python decorators are really cool, but they can be a little hard to understand at first. A decorator in Python is a function that accepts another function as an argument. The decorator will usually modify or enhance the function it accepted and return the modified function. This means that when you call a decorated function,
Python 201: Decorators Read More »
Reportlab is a very flexible PDF creation package for Python. You can layout your documents using absolute positioning or by using Flowable objects, such as a Paragraph, a Table or Frame. You can even mix the two together! In this article, we will be looking at how to create some custom Flowables. For example, what
Reportlab: How to Create Custom Flowables Read More »
There’s a Python book contest going on over on the Bite Sized Python Tips blog. You can get one of 3 copies of the book Tkinter GUI Application Development by Bhaskar Chaudhary. I reviewed this book late last year and found it be a really interesting book. I think it will give you lots of
eBook Giveaway – Tkinter GUI Application Development Read More »
The other day someone was asking a lot of questions on StackOverflow about how to work with wizards in wxPython. You can read the two original questions here and here. The code we’ll be looking at in this example is what I used to answer the questions on Stack. The primary question was how to
wxPython: How to Disable a Wizard’s Next Button Read More »
This is an update on the Kickstarter campaign I am running in support of my Python 101 book: We made it halfway through the campaign and I think we’re going to reach our first stretch goal! Speaking of stretch goals, I was thinking I should go ahead and announce a couple more. Stretch Goal #2:
Python 101 – We’re Halfway Through the Campaign! Read More »
It’s time for another update! I want to apologize for not writing sooner, but I’ve been without  internet for several days and I’m writing this from my phone. I just wanted to let you all know that I’m planning to finish part two this week. I’ve had some people ask if I plan to release
Python 101 – Writing Update Read More »
I had a lot of ideas for the cover of Python 101. My first idea was to go to the zoo and take some photographs of Pythons there, then pick the right one stick that on the cover. I have a lot of photo editing software, so I also considered taking the photo and changing
Python 101 Book: Behind the Scenes – The Cover Read More »
Python has a vast library of modules that are included with its distribution. The csv module gives the Python programmer the ability to parse CSV (Comma Separated Values) files. A CSV file is a human readable text file where each line has a number of fields, separated by commas or some other delimiter. You can
Python 101: Reading and Writing CSV Files Read More »
Python has a number of different concurrency constructs such as threading, queues and multiprocessing. The threading module used to be the primary way of accomplishing concurrency. A few years ago, the multiprocessing module was added to the Python suite of standard libraries. This article will be focused on the threading module though.
Python Concurrency: An Intro to Threads Read More »
I’m sure some of you have been wondering if I had a more concrete outline of the book that I am currently writing. As a matter of fact, I do. Here’s what I have so far: Part One: Learning the Basics Chapter 1 – IDLE Chapter 2 – Strings Chapter 3 – Lists, Tuples and
Python 101: Book Outline Read More »
My readers have been asking me to write a book for a few years now and I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and give it a go. For my first book, I decided to write something that’s for beginners and intermediate programmers. There will be four parts to the book with the first part
ANN: Python 101 – The Book! Read More »
Last year, Packt Publishing asked me to be a technical reviewer for a book called Python High Performance Programming by Gabriele Lanaro. It was published in December, 2013. For those of you with short attention spans, I give you my short review: Quick Review Why I picked it up: I got it for free, but
eBook Review: Python High Performance Programming Read More »
I work with a lot of dictionaries at my job. Sometimes the dictionaries get really complicated with lots of nested data structures embedded within them. Recently I got a little tired of trying to remember all the keys in my dictionaries so I decided to change one of my dictionaries into a class so I
Python 101: How to Change a Dict Into a Class Read More »
The people at Packt Publishing recently sent me an ebook copy of Raúl Garreta and Guillermo Moncecchi’s book, Learning scikit-learn: Machine Learning in Python to review. Machine learning isn’t a topic I’m very familiar with, but I gave the book a shot as it sounded interesting. I’ll start off with my quick review for those
eBook Review: Learning scikit-learn: Machine Learning in Python Read More »