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.

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 …

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 …

Here's an interesting problem. Implement the split command for mainframe COBOL EBCDIC files with their BDW and RDW headers.

The conventional split can't handle COBOL EBCDIC files because they don't have sensible \n line breaks. Translating an EBCDIC file to ASCII is high-risk because COMP and COMP-3 fields will be …

We'll be digging into Mastering Object-Oriented Python. Chapter 17, specifically.

We'll also be looking at a big refactoring of the Stingray Schema-Based File Reader.

We can identify three species of packages.

One common design is a Simple Package. A directory with an empty __init__.py file. This package name becomes …