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Welcome to issue 27 of Python Weekly. We have a special giveaway of "Core Python Applications Programming, 3rd Edition" book to 3 lucky subscribers of Python Weekly. You can see more details here. I would appreciate if you can let others know about this book  giveaway.
 
Also be sure to check out Python Weekly Special Offer we have at the end of this email.

Articles, Tutorials and Talks

Magic methods are special methods that you can define to add "magic" to your classes. They're always surrounded by double underscores (e.g. __init__ or __lt__). They're also not as well documented as they need to be. This post provides example-driven documentation for Python's magic methods.
 
In this talk, Travis Oliphant, talks about Python in Big Data. The topics addressed include what Python has to offer the world of Big Data, specific use-cases, as well asking why Hadoop is considered the de-facto standard. Additionally, Travis gives an overview of NumPy and SciPy.
 
This article demonstrates how to build an eTicketing application with some common technologies such as The PayPal APIs, Google App Engine, QR codes and Python.
 
clojure-py is an implementation of the Clojure language in Python, compiling Clojure code to bytecode for Python's virtual machine. It means that Python is no longer just a language, but is becoming a platform. Will more languages follow? Here is a HN thread discussing on the same topic.
 
The Prediction API allows developers to train their own predictive models, taking advantage of Google's world-class machine learning algorithms. It can be used for all sorts of classification and recommendation problems from spam detection to message routing decisions. This article covers both how to use a pretrained, publicly hosted predictive model and how to train your own predictive model, using an App Engine Service Account for easy authentication.
 
This is a helper module for web2py that lets you do some interesting and useful things with client side script. You can manage resources (scripts and css), events and other behavior from the server.
 
This post gives you a recipe for handling transactions sensibly in Django applications on PostgreSQL.
 
This presentation show you how to quickly build and deploy your own web apps to Heroku using some of the free and easy Python tools.
 
Python Performance Tips Part 1 discussed how to use Python effectively. In part 2, we will cover profiling and extending Python.
 
 
 
 
Interesting Projects, Tools and Libraries

Python Modernize is a very thin wrapper around lib2to3 to utilize it to make Python 2 code more modern with the intention of eventually porting it over to Python 3.
 
Flask Social is a Flask extension that aims to add simple OAuth provider integration for Flask-Security. Currently Facebook and Twitter are supported out of the box.
 
This site has a good collection of tornado related snippets.
 
Poolyx is a content management system based on Python and the Pyramid web framework.
 
Python Resolver is a  Python inversion of control/ dependency injection framework.
 
pysandbox is a Python sandbox. By default, untrusted code executed in the sandbox cannot modify the environment (write a file, use print or import a module). But you can configure the sandbox to choose exactly which features are allowed or not, eg. import sys module and read /etc/issue file.
 
The best way to have Django DRY forms. Build programmatic reusable layouts out of components, having full control of the rendered HTML without writing HTML in templates. All this without breaking the standard way of doing things in Django, so it plays nice with any other form application.
 
Circus is a program that runs and watches several processes. Circus can be used as a library or through the command line.


New Releases

Pyramid has release version 1.3 with Python 3 support. You can read about the new features in Pyramid version 1.3 as compared to its predecessor, Pyramid 1.2 in this post.


Upcoming Events and Webinars

On Friday evening you'll set up your development environment and start learning Python through a self-directed tutorial and online practice problems. On Saturday we'll spend the morning on a lecture-based introduction to the language, taking breaks to practice concepts on bite-sized exercises. In the afternoon we'll break out into groups to practice Python through short projects on a variety of fun and practical topics.
 
Join us for our third PhillyPUG project night! Work on Python projects, get programming help, work through tutorials, help others, hang out with other Pythonistas, and have fun.
 
The talks are very welcome!  It can be an in-depth dive or a shorter talk about a cool project or something you did at work. 
 

Books

web2py Application Development Cookbook gives you the necessary knowledge to make you a web2py expert. Right from teaching you about the database abstraction layer to adding AJAX effects to recipes about recipe, the book will make you a master of web2py through advanced practical recipes without any drudgery or straining the brain.
 

Python Jobs of the Week

We are looking for well-rounded software engineers to join our talented development team. You will build high-performance web services, influence architecture decisions and scale our technology stack. You'll bring new methodologies to our development process and have an important say in how we build our platform.


Python Weekly Special

For Python Weekly readers, we have a special 50% discount on Wing IDE. Use the discount code "pyweekly" during checkout to get 50% off your license. The code is valid through 4/6/2012, so make sure to take advantage of this offer before that.
 


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