Neat new stuff in Python 2.5

PYTHON

I’m looking forward to Python 2.5. In particular:

  • Partial function application. One of my favorite things about Python is how amenable it is to a mixture of procedural, functional, and object-oriented styles. Learning a bit of Scheme last year put me in an especially functional mindset. Can wait to see what else gets rolled into the functional module in the future.

  • pysqlite in the standard library. The incorporation of SQLite into PHP5 (which goes a step further than Python, since it includes the SQLite binary itself) has been a great convenience. Many apps just don’t need a full relational database – and if they eventually do, much better to have started with SQLite than with BDB or some homegrown flat-file solution.

  • The with statment and context managers. These seem bound to produce more readable code in many situations. See PEP 343 for more details.

Update: also see Simon Willison’s post.

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