[Python-Dev] Tutorial: Brief Introduction to the Standard Libary (original) (raw)

Skip Montanaro skip at pobox.com
Mon Dec 1 09:56:36 EST 2003 

Raymond> Some other candidates (let's pick just a two or three):

Raymond> - csv (basic tool for sharing data with other applications)

-0. I think basic usage is covered pretty well in the libref. At best, I'd just mention that it exists and link to the libref.

Raymond> - datetime (comes up frequently in real apps and admin tasks)

+1. Discussing how datetime and time integrate would be useful.

Raymond> - ftplib (because the examples are so brief)

-1. I would think it's rarely used.

Raymond> - getopt or optparse (because the task is common)

+1.

Raymond> - operator (because otherwise, the functionals can be a PITA)

-1. The most common case people needs is now covered by a builtin (sum).

Raymond> - pprint (because beauty counts)

+0. Brief mention at best.

Raymond> - struct (because fixed record layouts are common)

-0. Only for propeller heads.

Raymond> - threading/Queue (because without direction people grab thread
Raymond>   and mutexes)

+0. I agree that stumbling on thread is too common. OTOH, threads in general are a pretty advanced topic, and probably not real suitable for the tutorial.

Raymond> - timeit (because it answers most performance questions in a
Raymond>   jiffy)

-1. Newbies should probably not be worried about performance too much. In addition, I think most performance questions are deeper than those which can be answered by timeit (think naive O(n^2) algorithms).

Raymond> - unittest (because TDD folks like myself live by it)

+1. There's no time like the present to start adding tests.

Raymond> I've avoided XML because it is a can of worms and because short
Raymond> examples don't do it justice.  OTOH, it *is* the hot topic of
Raymond> the day and seems to be taking over the world one angle bracket
Raymond> at a time.

-1. XML is too complex for tutorial material.

Skip

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