Just in time for Pycon, material from our new book is now available on the Safari “Rough Cuts” service. If you’re a Safari subscriber, or decide to become one to get access to our draft chapters, please check it out and let us know what you think! Reader comments are incredibly important to us.
We have a title now – Python Web Development with Django – and we’re even listed on Amazon.
The latest This Week in Django podcast, out today, has an interview with me. I really enjoyed talking with Michael and Brian, and hope I didn’t come off sounding too dorky (or long-winded – I haven’t yet listened to the show, but based on the timestamps in the show notes I could probably use an edit!). I think they do a very good job with the show, and in fact I think that the structure Michael came up with – Tracking Trunk, Branching & Merging, Community Catchup, Tip of the Week – is one that other open source projects would do well to emulate in their news missives.
Congratulations to Adrian and Jacob on the launch of their GFDL-licensed book on Django. From the Django blog:
This is a pre-release, which means we’re actively looking for comments, typo fixes, corrections and other suggestions from readers like you, all around the world. We’ll try to incorporate your suggestions into the final product, which will be published by Apress early next year. Amazon.com is accepting preorders for the print edition, and the number of preorders so far has been astounding.
With English teachers for parents and a degree in literature, I’ve always felt a certain burden to uphold consistent, proper English usage. Over the past few years, though, one of the firm rules that I learned in my younger days – that commas and periods go inside quotation marks – has become impossible for me to follow.
This is an American rule, one that is mostly, if not entirely, about typographic appearance. If you place a comma or a period after the closing quotation mark, it’s kind of floating there in space. Placed before, it’s nestled tidily against the preceding letter. The American use of double-quotes intead of single makes this contrast even more dramatic.
‘Twas google/ig, and the odeos
Did skype and quimble in engrade:
All simpy were the buzzingos,
And the feedpaths carbonmade.
“Beware the Frapprflock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Yubnub bird, and shun
The del.icio.us Offertrax!”
He took his orkut sword in hand:
Long time the slawesome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Numsum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
