From Python Import Podcast

In this episode Mike Crute, Cory Sitko, and Mike Pirnat enjoy a day at the beach: not swimming, not making sand castles, but talking about Python. And yet, we love them.

Detailed show notes to follow, once Chris gets off his ass and writes them.

In this episode of From Python Import Podcast:

• We learn that Dave Stanek thinks that most of us (and by us, we mean you. Yes, you.) are using decorators wrong. “Balderdash!” quoth the Stanek. “This is all frumious nonsense!” Or something like that.
• The debate over whether or not we should be adding new code to the Standard library has been raised on certain mailing lists. Some feel that we need to add new functionality because, as we like to say, the batteries are included. However, others feel that adding things to the Standard Library is where code goes to die, and that no major updates ever take place once this happens. What do you think?
• The ever-charming and sexy Mike Pirnat joins us to discuss a personal revelation he’s had about the Zen of Python. We’re happy to take credit for this.
• We apologize for the sound quality on this one…you’ll see why when you listen. Someone had to pack up his studio equipment this week.

Thanks for joining us. We welcome, nay, crave your thoughts. And your immortal souls.

We’ve just recorded our next episode covering, well, you’ll just have to wait an see. We’re very excited to have a special guest on the show Mike Pirnat joins us to share his thoughts in a followup segment on the Zen of Python. Look for the new episode June 15th!

Update: Chris has a related post on his blog about our late episode.

In this episode, we continue our discussion of the Zen of Python.

This is the first of two episodes where we’re going to explore PEP 20, that is, The Zen of Python.

Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. Flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts. Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. Although practicality beats purity. Errors should never pass silently. Unless explicitly silenced. In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess. There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch. Now is better than never. Although never is often better than right now. If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea. If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea. Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

Real show notes to follow. With links and everything.