Yahoo has created a new resource for Python developers.
The search company on Aug. 8 opened its Yahoo Developer Network – Python Developer Center. The Yahoo Python Developer Center is a Web site that provides Python developers with access to information to help them build applications in the Python object-oriented dynamic language.
A description on the Yahoo Python Developer Center site says Python “offers strong support for integration with other languages and tools, comes with extensive standard libraries, and can be learned in a few days.”
Yahoo officials said the Sunnyvale, Calif., company quietly launched the site as a developer resource for information about using Python with Yahoo Web Services APIs.
Simon Willison, the developer who put together the Yahoo site, said the bulk of the information on the site is “how-tos” that show developers how to do various things with Python.
Some of the specific how-tos Willison pointed out include: Make Yahoo Web Service REST calls with Python, Cache API calls using Python, Parse JSON using Python, Parse XML using Python, Access the Yahoo Search APIs using pYsearch, and Access Yahoo RSS feeds using Python. pYsearch is an open-source Python library for accessing the Yahoo Search APIs.
The Yahoo Python Developer Center also features links to several Python educational resources, including Python.org, the home of Python on the Web; the Python Cookbook, a collection of useful Python code snippets; and the Python Package Index, which offers a range of open-source Python packages for developers to install.
“I had a lot of fun playing around with different ways of accessing the APIs and working out which ones were the most natural fit,” Willison said on his blog. “Python really is a fantastic language for exploring Web service APIs.”
Nate Koechley, an engineer at Yahoo who responded to Willisons blog post, said of the new Python Developer Center that “this is a great resource. I havent done much with Python to date, but think this will be the catalyst that gets me going with it.”
Meanwhile, Jeremy Zawodny, another Yahoo engineer, on his own blog, said of the site, “This not only pulls together a lot of useful stuff for Python hackers that want to tinker with our APIs, it means I have more good code examples from which to continue my quest to learn Python.”
The Python Developer Center is the latest language-specific developer center Yahoo has created for Web and dynamic language developers. Yahoo also has a JavaScript Developer Center and a PHP Developer Center on the Yahoo Developer Network.
Other companies are moving to provide community resources for developers, as well: Googles Project Hosting and Microsofts CodePlex community source sites are examples.