Ten years ago, the open source stack of platforms, languages, scripts, and procedures of Python/PHP, MySQL, Apache, and Linux (also known as LAMP) ushered the flowering of low cost start ups. Due to the free infrastructure LAMP provided, startups easily and economically got their web presences up. The low-cost hardware needed for a LAMP set up triggered an avalanche of startups since the barrier to entry in terms of web presence and application development was significantly lowered by this open source stack. Given the huge user base some of these start ups generated, LAMP setups dramatically lowered scaling and upgrade costs. However, there was a major problem – a possibly missed opportunity – that such large user bases using open source infrastructure created. Read the rest of this entry »
When you hear about a “little project” coming out of the MIT media lab, you can be sure that it will completely blow your mind. Its no revelation that whoever gets to work there is wicked smart and if you needed any proof, here it is: Cody Sumter and Jason Boggess, the two heroes of this story, have developed Minecraft.print, a pretty amazing little tool that lets you print three-dimensional objects previously created in Minecraft, from a simple cube to a model of the Starship Enterprise. The way it works is simple and made possible by Python. Read the rest of this entry »
The 2011 PyCon AU
Just read about this on ITWire, a must for Python enthusiasts “down under”: More than 250 users and developers, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, will get together at Sydney’s Masonic Center on August 20 and 21 and what they will probably talk about is web programming, business applications, game development, science and mathematics, education, testing, databases, documentation and all that good stuff. There will be presentations and workshops as well as a series of keynote lectures. The speakers include Raymond Hettinger, a core Python developer and experienced presenter, Mary Gardiner, doctoral candidate at Macquarie University with a specialty on computational linguistics, and Audrey Roy, a designer, developer and artist who apparently describes herself as the “world’s #1 orange and rainbow specialist”. Read the rest of this entry »
The Future is Now
I am sure all of you know about Python’s use in Dropbox (which runs not only on Windows and Mac but also on Linux) and other successful projects. You also might have heard that last month D-Wave Systems (out of Burnaby, B.C., Canada) announced the sale of the world’s first commercial quantum processor, the D-Wave One, which uses a 128-qubit chip they decided to name “Rainier” (anyone know why?). The thought of that monster makes me a little giddy, especially since they sold that thing to Lockheed Martin and I can’t necessarily say I like that corporation’s development history. The price tag, by the way, is $10M.
Imagine you are in an accident and the paramedics find you unconscious in your car. They need to save your live yet know nothing about your medical history, blood type or allergies, pre-existing conditions, all that stuff. Can they use their latex gloves, they wonder, or are you allergic to latex? But then they find this little card in your wallet right next to your organ donor’s card (which now, they will never have to look at): Your MyCare-card. Via USB, they plug it into their board computer and recognize immediately: Yep, latex allergy…
Credit: Image courtesy of EPSRC
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Macedonio Carpentier: Cuando dicen #Felices8MesesPyP se refieren al tiempo que llevaron programando en Python?
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Jurie Horneman: If I were to talk about how I've used Python to build tool chains on various game projects, what would you like to know (if anything)?
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Guido van Rossum: This is my last tweet. The Twitter for Android app just sent my entire address book to Twitter without confirming. See you on Google+.
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Guido van Rossum: NDB 0.9.5 released: http://t.co/zewBqzMI