Sometimes when you are coding, you want to know how long it takes for a particular function to run. This topic is known as profiling or performance tuning. Python has a couple of profilers built into its Standard Library, but for small pieces of code, it’s easier to just use Python’s timeit module. Thus, timeit […]
How to Time Small Pieces of Python Code with timeit Read More »
I’ve been thinking about creating a simple downloading script with wxPython for quite a while. Then I saw someone on StackOverflow asking about how to do it and I decided it was time to figure it out. Downloading a file with Python is trivial. I wrote about a couple of different ways to do that
wxPython: Creating a File Downloading App Read More »
A few years ago, a fellow named Zed Shaw created a website called Learn Python the Hard Way that a lot of people praised. The website is made up of lots of short exercises that help beginner programmers learn the various nuances of Python but in bit-sized chunks. He kept updating it from time to
eBook Review: Learn Python the Hard Way Read More »
The topic of generators has been covered numerous times before. However, it’s still a topic that a lot of new programmers have trouble with and I would hazard a guess that even experienced users don’t really use them either. Python generators allow developers to lazily evaluate data. This is very helpful when you are dealing
Python 201: An Intro to Generators Read More »
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Yasoob Khalid who authors the Free Python Tips blog So hi there guys! I hope you are fine. So what is in this post? Today we will be writing a cleanup script. The idea for this post came from Mike Driscoll who recently wrote a very useful
Python 101: Writing a cleanup script Read More »
The wxPython toolkit provides an alternative to using Sizers for layout that is known as “sized_controls”. These controls or widgets are basically top-level widgets (like frame, panel, dialog, etc) that have sizing logic built into them. This article will cover all four types of sized_controls. They are as follows: SizedPanel SizedScrolledPanel SizedFrame SizedDialog The SizedScrolledPanel
wxPython: An Introduction to Sized Controls Read More »
wxPython 2.9 introduced the world to a new type of sizer that can take widgets and automatically make them “wrap” around as you resize the frame. That sizer is known as wx.WrapSizer. For some reason, it is relatively unknown, so we’ll spend a few minutes going over how to use it in this article. To
wxPython: Wrap Widgets with WrapSizer Read More »
The Python programming language added the super() type back in version 2.2. For some reason, it’s still a topic that a lot of beginners don’t understand. One of my readers recently asked me about it and since I don’t really use it, I decided to do some research in the hopes of understanding its usage
Python 201: What is super? Read More »
Python has a neat little concept called a property that can do several useful things. In this article, we will be looking into how to do the following: Convert class methods into read-only attributes Reimplement setters and getters into an attribute In this article, you will learn how to use the builtin class property in
Python 201: Properties Read More »
I’ve been reading a lot about Python’s magic methods lately and recently read about a couple of ways to create an immutable class. An immutable class does not allow the programmer to add attributes to an instance (i.e. monkey patch). It’s a little easier to understand if we actually look at a normal class first.
How to Create “Immutable” Classes in Python Read More »
The Real Python: Advanced Web Development, featuring Django 1.6 KickStarter campaign released a preview chapter today called “Software Craftmanship”. It is the first chapter from the book. The PDF download consists of 33 pages. You can go get it too by going to the following address: http://www.realpython.com/preview/. If you haven’t already, you can still support
Real Python: Advanced Web Development Preview Chapter Read More »
Python’s first mainstream package was the .egg file. Now there’s a new format in town called the Wheel (*.whl). A wheel “is designed to contain all the files for a PEP 376 compatible install in a way that is very close to the on-disk format”. In this article, we will learn how to create a
Python: Packaging with Wheel Read More »
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has been with us for a long time and allows us to see new articles on our favorite website easily. Python doesn’t have an RSS reader module in the standard library, so we’ll be using the Universal Feed Parser 5.1.3 to do our parsing. If you do not have it already,
wxPython: Creating a Simple RSS Reader Read More »
The other day I had an interesting task I needed to complete with Reportlab. I needed to create a PDF in landscape orientation that had to be rotated 90 degrees when I saved it. To make it easier to lay out the document, I created a class with a flag that allows me to save
Reportlab: How to Create Landscape Pages Read More »
Happy New Year! It’s the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, so it’s time to see which articles made it into the top ten list this year. I ran the statistics on December 31st and came up with the following list: Python: A Simple Step-by-Step SQLite Tutorial (37,658 page views) Python 101: How
Top Ten Articles of 2013 Read More »