If you're looking for general information on Python, check out the main Python website at http://www.python.org. You could also pick up a copy of Python for Dummies (I'm one of the authors).
I now have up the slides from my OSCON 2002 presentation, Python for [Perl] Programmers. It's a fast-paced introduction to Python that focuses on the powerful features available in Python 2.2.
For more information about Python, go to the Python web site. If you have technical questions (as opposed to comments or questions about the web page itself), please post them to comp.lang.python so that everyone can share in the answers.
I set up this page mainly as a place to put my writings on how to use threads in Python. I have ambitions to write a full-blown tutorial, but so far I've only managed to put up slides from my in-person tutorials. The most recent one was at the 2001 O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON 2001) in July 2001. Here's the whole slideshow, including the PDF for the main slideshow itself, plus all the demo scripts.
An earlier version of the tutorial was presented at the Ninth International Python Conference (IPC9) in March 2001. Here's the whole slideshow for IPC9, including the PDF for the main slideshow itself, plus all the demo scripts.
As the first stage in an experiment in computational threading, I've created Decimal.py, a module that implements the decimal arithmetic (BCD) algorithms of Mike Cowlishaw (http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimal/). Decimal.py currently implements addition/subtraction and multiplication, plus a few conversion routines. It is not ready for production use, but I'd appreciate bug reports and design critiques.
Because I've been so dilatory, some people have started a SourceForge project to integrate Tim Peters's FixedPoint.py module (use this link if you're using a version of Python 2.x earlier than 2.2) into the Python core. It's not BCD, but it's fast and robust.
I've also put up the slides from my OSCON 2000 thread tutorial (July 2000). This was an early effort and is left mostly as a historical curiosity (and in case anyone can't get access to Acrobat).
If you're curious about me, check out my personal home page at http://rule6.info/
Last modified: 2007.5.4
aahz@pythoncraft.com