The official release of Python 3000 will be announced soon. The final bug, Issue2306, “Update What’s new in 3.0″ has been closed. Python 3000, py3k, Python 3.0, is a major release for the community. [Jeremy Hylton] pegs the earliest mention of the beast to January 2000. The new release has grown from PEP 3000, opened April 2006.

Py3k breaks backwards compatibility with previous releases in order to reduce feature duplication and promote one obvious way of getting things done. The first major change is that print is now a builtin function and not a statement. int and long have been unified, and integer division now returns a float. Py3k uses concepts of “text” and “data” instead of “Unicode strings” and “8-bit strings”. You can read about many of the changes in What’s New In Python 3.0. Some new features have been backported to Python 2.6 so you can start implementing them in your current code to ease the transition. 2.6 also has the -3 command line switch to warn you about features that are being removed or changed. Finally, the tool 2to3 is a source-to-source translator that should automate a lot of the changes.

Documentation for the new release is online. Source packages are available now and binaries will be released with [Guido van Rossum]’s official announcement.

[via johl]

      

With all the fun about pov's, you might be wondering how to do it with an Arduino. Having a device that can be used for the pov and then for some other project has its benefits. check out Carlito's Contraptions.

The parameters in the code can be changed in order to display other images besides of the default arrows.

The displayed image is stored in the data string. Each drawing is divided in frames (i.e. one frame for each letter of a word) and each frame is divided in columns. The image to be displayed must be encoded into 1s (ON) and 0s (OFF) and each value must be stored in the data string in the order illustrated below.

The duration of each column (i.e. how much time they stay ON), the spacing between frames and the spacing between images are set respectively by the integers timer1, timer2 and timer3. Keep in mind that their values depend on the rotation speed.

It's great how he puts his code in near the photos to show what the result looks like.

Persistance of Vision (POV) is how we can see a collection of still images in animated form and our mind connects them together to create the illusion of movement.

Nice start Carlos!

a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/arduino_pov.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/arduino_pov.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" / Permalink/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/arduino_pov.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890#comments" /Comments/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/arduino/?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more articles in Arduino/a | a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=blog.makezine.com%2Farchive%2F2008%2F12%2Farduino_pov.htmltitle=Arduino%20povbodytext=%20With%20all%20the%20fun%20about%20pov%26apos%3Bs%2C%20you%20might%20be%20wondering%20how%20to%20do%20it%20with%20an%20Arduino.%20Having%20a%20device%20that%20can%20be%20used%20for%20the%20pov%20and%20then%20for%20some%20other%20project%20has%20its%20benefits.%20check%20out%20Carlito%26apos%3Bs...topic=tech_news" /Digg this!/a

PGnJ 1.0PGnJ is an intuitive SQL Database Development Environment for Mac OS X. PGnJ is surprisingly simple, yet extremely powerful for working with databases. Unlike alternative clients, PGnJÂ’s unique, single window interface gives you everything you need, right at your fingertips.
WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.0:

• [NEW] Oracle support added. (Thanks, Lorgio!)
• [NEW] SQLite support added. (Thanks, Milan!)
• [NEW] Tab completion support for table and column names added to the query editor.
• [NEW] A Script Library for managing SQL scripts added (:variables supported).
• [NEW] A template system for generating DDL SQL templates.
• [NEW] A common toolbar has been added to the Query Editor and Script Library views.
• [NEW] A filter bar (CMD+F to focus) to filter and order data with SQL added in the DataBrowser. (Thanks, Lorgio!)
• [NEW] The bookmark manager can now remember connection passwords.
• [NEW] The execution engine has been completely rebuilt from scratch to better handle multiple queries regardless of type.
• [NEW] The database tree now automatically refreshes when DDL is detected.
• [NEW] The database tree's state is now recalled when the database is refreshed (expanded nodes remain expanded, selected node remains selected).
• [NEW] SQL can now be executed directly from a file without first loading it into the query editor (for larger scripts).
• [NEW] It is now possible to drop one more files directly onto the query editor's input area to load sql.
• [NEW] Right clicking on a result set now reveals a pop-up menu that allows copying the content of either a single cell or the entire row in CSV format to the clipboard.
• [NEW] The bookmark manager now remembers the last selected database type to ease the task of adding bookmarks.
• [NEW] Table details are now pre-fetched in a background thread after connection to database is established.
• [NEW] A drag handle has been added to the bottom left action bar to make resizing the sidebar easier.
• [NEW] PGnJ can now remain running without any windows open (like standard Cocoa applications).
• [NEW] Experimental horizontal scroll wheel support added (use preference to toggle).
• [NEW] Added preference to convert all zero datetimes in MySQL to NULL (on by default; off causes exception).
• [NEW] Added menu items and keyboard shortcuts to navigate the table details at the bottom of the sidebar.
• [NEW] A shortcut (CMD+T) to focus on the database tree in the sidebar has been added.
• [NEW] A shortcut (CMD+W) to close the preferences window when it is visible has been added.
• [NEW] When started, PGnJ now specifically asks if it's okay to check for updates rather than defaulting to autochecking.
• [CHANGE] CSV Export no longer wraps integers, floats and booleans in quotes.
• [CHANGE] The connection sheet and bookmark manager are now fully keyboard navigable.
• [CHANGE] The connection sheet now cancels on escape. (Thanks, Manton!)
• [CHANGE] The keyboard shortcut CMD+E and menu item 'Database > Execute SQL' now executes SQL when the QueryEditor is visible and reloads the DataBrowser when the DataBrowser is visible.
• [CHANGE] Altered the row selection behavior on the database tree so that clicking on an expand/collapse arrow doesn't highlight that row unless the currently selected row is a child of that row.
• [CHANGE] When using CMD-UP/CMD-DOWN quick history from the Query Editor, if there is SQL currently in the Editor, it is added to the history so that it isn't lost.
• [CHANGE] The history browser (CMD-SHIFT-H) no longer automatically executes a SQL statement after selecting it and appropriately cleans up the query editor before loading the selected SQL.
• [CHANGE] Connection sheets are now correctly document modal. (Thanks to Werner, the Quaqua developer!)
• [CHANGE] Menu items are now properly enabled or disabled based on the context of the application.
• [CHANGE] Where necessary, tooltips are assigned to disabled menu items to explain how they can be enabled.
• [CHANGE] All tables are now borderless to be more in line with current trends in OS X application design.
• [CHANGE] The background color of the sidebar has been darkened slightly to better resemble the sidebar background colors of other OS X applications.
• [CHANGE] Polished dialogs with more appropriate copy and icons.
• [CHANGE] The QueryEditor now receives focus upon a successful connection to a bookmark.
• [CHANGE] When resizing the window, the sidebar now only grows the area containing the database tree rather than the table details section at the bottom.
• [CHANGE] Updated Quaqua LAF to version 5.0.1. (Thanks to Werner, the Quaqua developer!)
• [FIX] Now able to issue ALTER, CREATE and DROP statements to MySQL databases.
• [FIX] When a new bookmark is setup to connect to, it is now only added if the connection is successful.
• [FIX] The AutoCheckForUpdates preference is no longer (accidently) ignored.
• [FIX] Style changes in the query editor are no longer registered in the undo/redo history.
• [FIX] When loading a sql file, the QueryEditor properly replaces the current view.
• [FIX] Dialogs (sheets) now correctly gain focus, enabling keyboard interaction. (Thanks to Werner, the Quaqua developer!)
• [FIX] Columns of a table no longer sporadically appear multiple times in the table details area.

REQUIREMENTSMac OS X 10.4 or later.
DEVELOPERThomas Mango
DOWNLOADS7733
DOWNLOAD NOW (5.8 MB)
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= BinData is a declarative way to read and write structured binary data. This release implements several requested features: arrays can read until eof; TCPSocket (and UDPSocket) can be used as source streams; 128bit integers are supported. Memory usage has been significantly reduced, which has the pleasant side effect of reducing execution time. == What is BinData? Do you ever find yourself writing code like this? io = File.open(...) len = io.read(2).unpack(quot;vquot;) name = io.read(len) width, height = io.read(8).unpack(quot;VVquot;) puts quot;Rectangle #{name} is #{width} x #{height}quot; It's ugly, violates DRY and feels like you're writing Perl, not Ruby. Here's how you'd write the above using BinData. class Rectangle lt; BinData::MultiValue . endian :little . uint16 :len . string :name, :read_length =gt; :len . uint32 :width . uint32 :height end io = File.open(...) r = Rectangle.read(io) puts quot;Rectangle #{r.name} is #{r.width} x #{r.height}quot; BinData supports signed/unsigned integers, floats, bitstrings, strings, null terminated strings, arrays, choices and user defined structures.

Exjali is a small Java library, allowing more expressive statements without altering the language. Exjali includes some attempts for ranges of integers, SQL-like functions, IO facilities, functors and named parameters.lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Read the full article and/or visit lt;a href=quot;http://exjali.sourceforge.netquot; target=quot;_blankquot;gt;http://exjali.sourceforge.netlt;/agt; to learn more. pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/techtarget/tsscom/home?a=Ee2hFr"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/techtarget/tsscom/home?i=Ee2hFr" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/techtarget/tsscom/home?a=TTxeO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/techtarget/tsscom/home?i=TTxeO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/techtarget/tsscom/home?a=CVAnO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/techtarget/tsscom/home?i=CVAnO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/techtarget/tsscom/home?a=UgSko"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/techtarget/tsscom/home?i=UgSko" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techtarget/tsscom/home/~4/473596046" height="1" width="1"/