Archive for September, 2010

Python 3 Object Oriented Programming

Thursday, September 16th, 2010 | Computer Science | Comments

Python 3 Object Oriented Programming had been reviewed already by a number of people in the python community and I’m lucky to have been given the occasion to read it as well.

As most of the other reviewers I say that the book is pleasant, it’s easy to follow and crystal clear. It gives a good overview of everything you have to expect from python.

The book is composed of 12 chapters

  • The first 5 introduce the reader to basic concepts related to object oriented programming like Objects and Classes, Exceptions and Inheritance:
    Object-oriented Design, Objects in Python, When Objects are Alike, Expecting the Unexpected, When to Use Object-oriented Programming
  • The next 2 delve into more python specific features and uses: Python Data Structures, Python Object-oriented Shortcuts
  • Two chapters on common design patterns and patterns commonly used in python follow: Python Design Patterns I, Python Design Patterns II
  • The remaining three provide some basic I/O introduction (Files and Strings) and a good intruduction to useful libraries and tools: Testing Object-oriented Programs and Common Python 3 Libraries

Each chapter share the same Introduction-Details-Case_Study-Exercise-Summary internal structure.

The book seems really good for teaching in university, it explains very clearly lots of basic concepts that usually are given as already known and introduces to concept like UML, design patterns and test driven development in a quite soft and easy way.
It is perfect for an initial object oriented programming course, if it comes along or one term before software engineering course.

  • The usage of UML is to the point and isn’t heavy at all, making it good for people that just learnt what UML is or that were going to learn it along in other courses.
  • The chapters about design patterns touch most of the commonly used patterns in python and explain why some patterns aren’t used at all. In an academic context those are quite good to show how the abstract concepts get used in the real code.
  • Since we are using a lot nose probably I’d prefer having it used while explaining unittest, still I the chapter is quite good to have somebody without previous knowledge start playing with tests.
  • The end of chapter summary and an exercise sections are quite useful for reviewing and do a bit of self check. Probably having also an appendix with the exercises solved would made the book even more student-suited.

All in all I consider this book quite well suited for Universities (both professors and students will enjoy it) and python newcomers. More skilled readers will still find it a good book to read about python3.

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Android Motorola phones policy

Saturday, September 4th, 2010 | Computer Science | Comments

As a previous HTC Dream owner I have been quite sad with my Motorola Backflip in the past few months. I couldn’t upgrade it to unofficial roms, I couldn’t run root software, my bootloader was constrained to run only specific signed roms probably by using IBM eFuse and last but not least Motorola announced that it didn’t have any intention to provide an upgrade to Android 2.X for the Backflip in Europe. It’s 2010 and I am confined to a device running an Android version older than the version that my 2 years old HTC Dream did run.

As I really liked the policy from Samsung to release their complete OS sources for their android phones and I really liked the design of the Galaxy S, my next phone will probably be a Samsung. In the mean time I’m finally happy to discover that someone got a working root on the Motorola Backflip and having tested it myself I can say that it actually works.

I can only hope that someone will also be able to find a way to produce backed roms for the Backflip providing and unofficial upgrade to 2.x as Motorola left me alone with my plain old Android 1.5

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