Let me start with a wow. PyCrypto is very nice. Let me emphasize the add-ons that go with PyCrypto. These are as valuable as the package itself. Here's the story. I was working with a Java-based AES encrypter that used the "PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1" key generator algorithm. This was part of a …

def s0( samples ):
    return len(samples) # sum(x**0 for x in samples …

A deep dive into probability and scipy: https://www.packtpub.com/building-probabilistic-graphical-models-with-python/book I have to admit up front that this book is out of my league. The Python is sensible to me. The subject matter -- graph models, learning and inference -- is above my pay grade.

Read this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emc/2014/06/26/the-hottest-jobs-in-it-training-tomorrows-data-scientists/ Interesting subject areas: Statistics, Machine Learning, Algorithms. I've had questions about data science from folks who (somehow) felt that calculus and differential equations were important parts of data science. I couldn't figure out how they decided that diffeq's …

This is (was?) an epic web site: http://projecteuler.net/about Currently, they're struggling with a security problem. http://forum.projecteuler.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3591 Years ago, I found the site and quickly reached Level 2 by solving a flood of easy problems. Recently, a recruiter strongly …

Why? Why are Enterprise Computers so hard to use? What is it about computers that terrifies corporate IT? They're paying lots of money to have me sit around and wait for mysterious approver folks to decide if I can be given permission to install development tools. (Of course, the real …

https://developer.apple.com/swift/ This lowers the bar for entry to the iOS market. Does it also lower the bar for Mac OS X? Can it be used to write command-line command-line applications ("scripts")? It has a REPL, which means it can do a kind of "just-in-time" compile and …

See this short discussion on a Stingray Reader feature:

https://sourceforge.net/p/stingrayreader/discussion/COBOL/thread/d2132851/?limit=25#2a3a

This turned into an exercise in pure TDD.

<rant>

I'm not a fan of applying TDD in a strict, death-march fashion.

I see the comments on Stack Overflow that …