From: guido@cwi.nl (Guido van Rossum)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Python 0.9.8 released
Date: 9 Jan 93 20:48:22 GMT
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc

I have finally released the long-awaited Python version 0.9.8.  Boy
has it been a heavy delivery!  But the baby is healthy as can be...
(If you don't know what Python is, there's a short blurb behind my
signature.  The tutorial in the ftp'able docs tells you more.)

I am crossposting this to comp.sys.sgi because Python, while being
portable to most UNIX versions, has a number of platform-specific
modules for the SGI that interface to GL, FORMS, libimage.a, and the
Indigo audio and video libraries and hardware.  Sample applications
are included.  If you want to learn GL by experimentation, Python
might be just the tool for you!

You can ftp it from the following sites:

Location	Site			IP address 		Directory

Amsterdam	ftp.cwi.nl		192.16.184.180		/pub/python
U.S.A.		wuarchive.wustl.edu	128.252.135.4		/pub

The filename is python0.9.8.tar.Z.  There's also a file containing
PostScript of the documentation (tutorial, reference, library):
pythondoc-ps0.9.8.tar.Z.  If you're using an earlier version of Python
now, you may want to fetch the files python-NEWS-0.9.8 to see what has
changed.

The version on wuarchive is likely to evaporate some time after it is
installed; I will try to make sure that the version on ftp.cwi.nl is
always there.  You are invited to copy these files to other ftp
archives to which you have access.

Please don't ask me to mail you the files, use a mail-ftp gateway.
(And be advised that the compressed source is almoset 2 Meg.)

If you experience any kind of trouble with building or using 0.9.8,
please mail me a short description giving as much detail as possible
about what system and configuration you are using and what kind of
error messages you get.  I will try to do something about it,
providing either a work-around or patch.

--Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl>

===============================================================================
What is Python?
---------------

Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming
language.  It incorporates modules, exceptions, dynamic typing, very
high level dynamic data types, and classes.  Python combines
remarkable power with very clear syntax.  It has interfaces to many
system calls and libraries, as well as to various window systems, and
is extensible in C or C++.  It is also usable as an extension language
for applications that need a programmable interface.  Finally, Python
is portable: it runs on many brands of UNIX, on the Mac, and on
MS-DOS.

As a short example of what Python looks like, here's a script to
print prime numbers (not blazingly fast, but readable!).  When this
file is made executable, it is callable directly from the UNIX shell
(if your system supports #! in scripts and the python interpreter is
installed at the indicated place).

#!/usr/local/bin/python

# Print prime numbers in a given range

def main():
	import sys
	min, max = 2, 0x7fffffff
	if sys.argv[1:]:
		min = int(eval(sys.argv[1]))
		if sys.argv[2:]:
			max = int(eval(sys.argv[2]))
	primes(min, max)

def primes(min, max):
	if 2 >= min: print 2
	primes = [2]
	i = 3
	while i <= max:
		for p in primes:
			if i%p == 0 or p*p > i: break
		if i%p <> 0:
			primes.append(i)
			if i >= min: print i
		i = i+2

main()
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc