PyDAO is very thin object-relational mapper similar to Hibernate (but
much simpler). It's created to speed-up application development. It's
very simple, but powerful, based on POPO (Plain Old Python Objects).

http://aplikacja.info/PyDAO.html

Main features:

- can use any database that has DB-API interface (MySQLdb, psycopg
tested)
- can work without database at all (useful for early phases of
development)
- speeds up unit testing (dedicated in memory database)

What is not handled:

- automatic scheme generation
- separate query language
- automated handling of associations (replaced by filtering by
foreign keys)

Here's an example how to use PyDAO:

Hi all,

I'm proud to announce the release of lxml 1.3.

http://codespeak.net/lxml/
http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/lxml/

** What is lxml?

"""
In short: lxml is the most feature-rich and easy-to-use library for working
with XML and HTML in the Python language.

lxml is a Pythonic binding for the libxml2 and libxslt libraries. It is unique
in that it combines the speed and feature completeness of these libraries with
the simplicity of a native Python API.
"""

** This is a major new release with various new features and lots of fixes
compared to the 1.2 series. The complete changelog follows below.

Major objectives of this release were:

- API consolidation:
make everything work with everything

- improved namespace handling:
avoid redundant namespaces wherever possible

Leo 4.4.3 beta 3 is available at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3458&package_id=29106

This release fixes all known bugs and adds several new features.

Leo is a text editor, data organizer, project manager and much more. See:
http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/intro.html

http://uche.ogbuji.net/tech/4suite/amara
http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/Amara/
ftp://ftp.4suite.org/pub/Amara/

Changes since Amara 1.2.0.1:

* Fix bindery bug with e.g. del html.head.title
* Fix bindery bug with elements named "None"
* Fix bindery bug when a string object gets into a binding
* Minor documentation and packaging tweaks

Amara XML Toolkit is a collection of Python tools for XML processing--
not just tools that happen to be written in Python, but tools built from
the ground up to use Python's conventions and take advantage of the many
advantages of the language.

Amara builds on 4Suite [http://4Suite.org], but whereas 4Suite offers
more on literal implementation of XML standards in Python, Amara
focuses on Pythonic idiom. It provides tools you can trust to conform
with XML standards without losing the familiar Python feel.

The components of Amara are:

Announcing Urwid 0.9.8.1
----------------------

Urwid home page:
http://excess.org/urwid/

Tarball:
http://excess.org/urwid/urwid-0.9.8.1.tar.gz

RSS:
http://excess.org/feeds/tag/urwid/

About this release:
===================

This is a maintenance release that fixes a number of bugs that have been
found in 0.9.8.

New in this release:
====================

* Fixed a Filler render() bug

* Fixed a raw_display start()/stop() bug

* Fixed a number of problems triggered by very small terminal window
sizes.

This Saturday we'll be holding our 4th Saturday meeting of the DFW Pythoneers,
at the usual location of Nerdbooks.com bookstore in Richardson. For
directions, visit the Nerdbooks.com website. We start at 2pm and run until
5pm, and then go out for a group dinner.

At this meeting one of our local members, Jeremy Dunck, will be giving us a
preview of a 60-minute advanced Django tutorial he is helping to give at OSCON
next month. The advanced material will cover the unicode branch, signals and
either stateful views or gis branch.

Since many of our members are not experienced with Django, Jeremy will present
a 45-minute introduction to Django first, which will cover URLConf, views,
models and perhaps middleware.

---

By the way, I've been contacted by a developer at the Travelocity Dallas
office, who is looking for local Python developers with experience in Django
or Genshi. If you're interested, let me know and I can put you in touch.

---

QOTW: "Regarding a Java programmer moving to Python, a lot of the mindset
change is about the abundant use of built in data types of Python. So a Java
programmer, when confronted with a problem, should think 'how can I solve
this using lists, dicts and tuples?' (and perhaps also my new favourite,
sets). Class-based solution should be chosen only after seeing that the
problem can't be trivially solved with built-in types." - Ville Vainio

"The remainder of the unittest docs are somewhat obtuse and
uninspiring." - Raymond Hettinger

How to generate HTML page thumbnails: John J Lee enumerates
several alternatives, using MSIE, Firefox, Konqueror and others.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/2185ad4e31c.../

Concatenating strings may be painfully slow in some
circumstances if not done the right way:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/3999b838387.../

Initializing class members only when needed, using a
LazyClassAttribute decorator:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/18f8b54cb15.../

Summary:
1 hour 20 minutes of lessons in how to build a complete and tested Python application from scratch. The series is aimed at beginners, all necessary material is provided, viewers can ask me (the author) questions as they go.

Commercial series: 'Python 101 - easygui and csv':
http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=IwrOgqPc9

Detail:
The 17 episodes walk a new Python programmer through all necessary steps to build a working and unit-tested Python program. In this series I use Wingware's Wing IDE but any Python development environment can be used.

The program reads in a csv data file (e.g. from Excel) using a file-open dialog (easygui), the data is processed, a mathematical average generated and a modified csv file is written out. easygui's messagebox and yes/no dialog are also used.

I show how to document the code, refactor the early script using functions and test functions using nosetests. Several exercises are set which extend the viewer's knowledge of easygui. They also provide practice for writing code, refactoring and applying test-driven development.

The viewer is encouraged to ask questions using the Comments section, I'll answer all questions and everyone is encouraged to help each other. Full source is provided and the viewer can download the videos for off-line viewing.

Further details are available here:
http://blog.showmedo.com/2007/06/13/learn-gui-and-file-handling-techniques/

Leo 4.4.3 beta 2 is available at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3458&package_id=29106

Leo is a text editor, data organizer, project manager and much more. See:
http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/intro.html

For those who write books and articles, I've established a wiki page just as
we already have a page for those who offer training services for Python. If
you would like to be reachable by those needing writing services of various
kinds, please add yourself to the list, along with some indication of what you
prefer to work on, your portfolio of work and your experience level:

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonWriters

I'm open to creative ideas on how to format the information. A link to the
page has been added to the sidebar menu under "Community".

Jeff Rush
Advocacy Coordinator