O'Reilly

A good report from Pycon 2009... "This was my second Pycon--since the last two have been in Chicago and on a weekend it has been an easy drive for me to attend coming from Michigan. Since last year was my first time at Pycon--I was just finding my way around. This year I was invited to all the 'Python educators' parties and running around promoting my upcoming 'Using Google App Engine' book--handing out postcards with discount codes and hanging out at the O'Reilly booth.... [more]

Functional programming through Haskell..."I've started reading Real World Haskell and it is a great way to learn functional programming. Coming from XSLT (a rather functional language) I had a feeling of preparedness. Fortunately, Real World Haskell has revealed a huge gap in my experience with functional languages as well as presented me with an opportunity to make major strides towards growing as a programmer.

Perl development is now in a single open source repository...

So how would you compare your favorite musician with your favorite language?"As a musician and a programmer, I'm constantly drawing relationships between the two activities. My wife, who I play music with, has been the recipient of the the vast majority of these comparisons and asked me the other day, 'Is C the Beatles of programming languages?'

Chromatic lends his take on what Perl needs to improve..."Perl's 21st anniversary of release is next Thursday, 18 December. Perl 5 is already 14 years old. Though the language has seen many changes since 1994, it can't stand still. Perl 5.10 added many wonderful features and Perl 6 will change the landscape for programming languages, but what's the vision for Perl 5? How can the language stay relevant?

An interview with Groklaw's Pamela Jones...