plac is much more than a command-line arguments parser. You can use it to implement interactive interpreters (both on a local machine on a remote server) as well as batch interpreters. It features a doctest-like mode, the ability to launch commands in parallel, and more. And it is easy to use too!

Removing the hype around the multicore (non) revolution and some (hopefully) sensible comment about threads ad other forms of concurrency.

Announcing the first public release of plac, a declarative command line arguments parser designed for simplicity and concision.

The EuroPython conference will be held in Birmingham UK, 19th to 22nd July 2010.

This essay is intended for Python programmers wanting to understand the concept of cooperative inheritance and the usage of super. It does not require any previous reading. The target is Python 3.0, since it has a nicer syntax for super, even if most of what I say here can be backported down to Python 2.2.

A short note about a task I am doing at my day job, involving making sure that different caches are cleared consistently. For people wondering about real-life use cases of metaprogramming techniques.

Some musings about my personal history with inheritance and interfaces, solicited by the release of the Go language this week.

This is the updated translation of a beginner-level paper I wrote for Stacktrace one year ago (see http://stacktrace.it/articoli/2008/05/gestione-dei-record-python-1/). It basically discusses Python 2.6 namedtuples (plus some musing of mine).

A quick recipe for readers of digital comics

This summer I have been quite silent on Artima. Here is an update of what I have done and what I plan to do in the future.

What does it mean that two identifiers are equal in a lexically scoped language with hygienic macros? This last episode of part V tries to answer the question, by discussing three different concepts of identifier equality.

In this episode I explain how to break hygiene in Scheme macros by using datum->syntax. I discuss how you can play with the lexical context. Finally, I spend some word on non-hygienic macro systems versus hygienic systems.

If there is a topic which is likely to engender a flame war between Schemers and Lispers, that topic is hygienic macros. It is the time to face it, and to explain what people mean when they allude to the "hygiene problem".

In the last dozen episodes I have defined plenty of macros, but I have not really explained what macros are and how they work. This episode closes the gap: it explains the true meaning of Scheme macros by introducing the concepts of syntax object and of transformer over syntax objects.

In this episode I add another item to the macro programmer toolkit (macros taking macros as arguments) and I bring an argument in favor of good old parentheses.