I compared stock Python 2.5, Psyco and ShedSkin output on an artificial neural network problem. The goal was to quickly estimate how fast a C version might solve the problem without having to actually write C (thus saving hours, sweat and tears).  ShedSkin converts Python code to C++ for compilation with g++.

Psyco speeds things up by a factor of 2.6, ShedSkin by a super-impressive 196 times.

Leonardo Maffi has continued the benchmarks and shows that hand-coded C is between 1.5 and 7 times faster than ShedSkin’s output.  Auto-generated code that is within a order of magnitude of hand-written code is darned impressive in my book!

He also notes the difficulty of writing a bug-free C version vs the simplicity of dealing with Python (and D) code.

As a side note - Mark Dufour and team at ShedSkin are interested in having extra hands help with the push to a 0.1 release which supports enough Python to be useful to many.

“I like the beginner videos, because you are confident on what the student must prepare to accept initially as dogma, and suggest to trust you for later explanation and pragmatize the knowledge-gaps.  You also show the PEPs, as a great way of showing how software is maintained when tens of thousands of people are behind it.” - Gasto

These videos are aimed at new Python programmers who want to understand how to write their own functions and how to avoid making time-eating mistakes.  The 6 episodes last 5-10 minutes each.  The series is available to Club ShowMeDo members.

“So much help for beginners like me, many thanks to Ian.” - hoya

1. Overview (free)
   
2. Defining a Function (Club-only)
   
3. Arguments and Return Values 1 (Club-only)
4. Arguments and Return Values 2 (Club-only)
5. Variable Scope (Club-only)
6. Nested and Private Function (Club-only)

Club videos are for paying members (a year’s membership costs less than a couple of books).  Anyone who contributes a video to ShowMeDo gets free Club membership for life.  Over 140 screencasts exist in the Club now, on top of the 760 free videos in the site.

Ron Stephens of awaretek and the Python 411 podcasts interviewed me last week (30 minute mp3).  Sadly our Skype connection wasn’t great so I’m somewhat garbled (but still understandable!).

Ron mentions the videos of some of our authors, I’m happy to say that Florian’s advanced Python and decorators series is mentioned, along with ericflo and Eric Holscher’s two Django series.

I also wrote a new article for the Python Papers for Volume 3, Issue 2 (pdf).

In this piece I talk about: Gasto, Horst, Kirby, Florian, ericflo, percious, Jiang Xin, Lucas, Marius and Erik Thompson.  The article covers our recent videos, the Club and it talks about how anyone can contribute.

I have another Python Papers article planned for after Christmas, all recent Python authors will get a mention again.  If you are thinking of authoring a screencast - we do try to spread your name and send kudos your way!

“…I log into my tutorial account and start making the screencast, with recording on. It has to be noted that I have no second monitor showing me the code I am supposed to write, so I pretty much write it from memory. With longer screencasts I might have a paper with notes lying next to me. …”

His method is probably shared by most screencasters, though editing tends to follow (at least for me) to clean-up the recording, remove empty space and smooth out any audio glitches.

Batteries Included - The Python Standard Library has 9 episodes for Club-subscribers which introduce the core elements of file-system access, using the shell, regular expressions, math, dates and talking to websites.

“I will thank you for getting this in-depth basic explanation of the basic modules. It really fills in some missing holes on my knowledge of using this.” - JZA

Each video is around 5 minutes long and includes examples of normal use.

Episodes:

1. Series overview
2. The “sys” module
3. The “os” module
4. The “shutil” module (shell access)
   
5. The “glob” module (file pattern matching)
   
6. The “re” module (regular expressions)
   
7. The “math” module
8. The “urllib2” module
9. The “datetime” module

Other recent Python videos include Making a Django Dev Environment, TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development, Python for Math Education, Database Programming, Google App Engine and pyWin32

“Thanks! Learning by looking over the shoulder is really a great addition to the help files.”

Screencasts make it easier to see what’s going on for the new user:

1. An Introduction to Vim Macros
2. Vim Selections
3. Vim % operator

These videos form a part of our 330 Python tutorial screencasts.  Most are free, some are a part of our Club which focuses on carefully planned tutorials for Python beginner/intermediate programmers.

Other recent videos include Making a Django Dev Environment,  TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development and Python for Math Education.  Recent beginner-Python videos include Common Variables and Containers, Loops and Iteration and What Does Python Look Like?.

“Wow! I had no idea Django could do that. Suffering from some serious envy right here. Very, very good screencast. Pacing, structure, content all top notch. When you called up that Python console my jaw dropped a few inches” - Kyran Dale

Second Ian shows Django in Under a Minute to celebrate the release of Django v1 with an easily blogged, music-backed demo.

Searching for bugs helps you figure out if you’ve found a problem with Python rather than in your own code.  Filing bugs is an important way you can help to make Python better.  If you’ve never seen the Python Bug Tracker, take a look at this lovely demo.

“Wow, this is probably the most eloquent/fine-voiced screencast I’ve ever heard of.” - gasto.

These videos form a part of our 330 Python tutorial screencasts.  Most are free, some are a part of our Club which focuses on carefully planned tutorials for Python beginner/intermediate programmers.

Other recent videos include Making a Django Dev Environment,  TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development and Python for Math Education.  Recent beginner-Python videos include Common Variables and Containers, Loops and Iteration and What Does Python Look Like?.

By the end of the series you’ll be able to read other people’s Python code more confidently and you’ll have useful examples for building your own loops.

The complete series runs for 30 minutes, each episode is around 5 minutes long and includes examples:

1. Overview (Loops and Iteration)
2. For on a List
3. For using a range
4. For using enumerate
5. For on a set
6. For on a dict(ionary)
7. While loops

Other recent videos include What does Python Look Like?,  Agile Python/Pylons Development for pySvnManager,  Making a Django Dev Environment, TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development and Python for Math Education, Developing emol!.

For his first series Lucas covers elements of The Python Standard Library.

Half of the videos are published, the series will be fully published in the next two weeks.  Each video is around 5 minutes long and includes examples of normal use.

Episodes:

1. Series overview
2. The “sys” module
3. The “os” module
4. The “shutil” module
5. The “glob” module
6. The “re” module [forthcoming]
7. The “math” module [forthcoming]
8. The “urllib2? module [forthcoming]
9. The “datetime” module [forthcoming]

Other recent Python videos include Making a Django Dev Environment, TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development, Python for Math Education, Database Programming, Google App Engine and pyWin32