The problem with Python is the vastness of the Open Source community. You may think you have something cool for HTML parsing , but then someone tells you about Beautiful Soup which already does it.

In my defense, I actually did a version of this HTML parsing back in '02. Indeed …

The mixed content model, defined succinctly in the XML standards, is pleasant enough for human communication, but leaves a lot to be desired. For example, mapping a mixed content model to a relational database is a hard problem.

The problem is made worse when the document is HTML. HTML doesn't …

I think that learning Java is challenging. You've got to learn the language, object-oriented programming, the libraries and the endless Java Technologies. The Java landscape is crowded with J*tx* and tx J add-ons, where tx is some technology abbreviation; for example, JAXWS, JAXB, SAAJ, JMS, JFC, JCE, JAAS, etc …

The Cubulus project and Alexandru Toth 's page describe an "OLAP Aggregation Engine". It is very nice to see advanced work done on the dimensional model.

The cited research dates from 1999 (V. Markl, F. Ramsak, R. Bayer, "Improving OLAP Performance by Multidimensional Hierarchical Clustering", Proceedings of the Intl. Database …

Thanks to everyone who attended. See Designing Web Services with the J2EE(TM) 1.4 Platform : JAX-RPC, SOAP, and XML Technologies for more information. Also, check out Dr. Dobb's SOA, Web Services and XML department.

Here's the Micro$oft PPT file: Web Services 8.ppt

Here's the Open-Office file: Web …

After having written a number of application-specific object-relational mappers, I have been on the prowl for an elegant, enduring solution. I had started to come to grips with Django , and like much of the approach. Django has a tiny infrastructure feature (the settings.py file) which made it unpleasant to …

Here's the shocking result.

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2006/08/language_quiz.php

And I thought I was just arrogant. Now I see that it's worse than I thought.

There are a number of necessary skills for being an architect. Here's a list of four that occurred to me as I tried to piece together a coherent thought from a flurry of emails.

• Summarize.
• State A Goal.
• Know The Technology.
• Manage Your Investment In Learning.

These aren't sufficient skills …

Actually, the code looks like a clever expansion on my example, in PyCon 2007 (Revised) .

"But wait," you say. "Creating a pivot table in Python?"

Of course. Spreadsheets can create pivot tables from dimensionally normalized data. However, getting the data in this form is often challenging and if there is …

First, I'm really pleased to see a focus on end-user applications of Python. It seems like most of the Open Source Community likes to build infrastructure, operating systems, servers, frameworks and components. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places, but I have a soft spot in my heart for …