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Charming Python: Using state machinesAlgorithms and programming approaches in Python

Charming Python: SimPy simplifies complex models

To attempt to explain it in the simplest terms, a continuation is a representation, at a particular point in a program, of everything the program is capable of doing subsequently. A continuation is a potential that depends on initial conditions. Rather than loop in a traditional way, it is possible to invoke the same continuation recursively with different initial conditions. One broad claim I have read is that continuations, in a theoretical sense, are more fundamental and underlie every other control structure. Don't worry if these ideas cause your brain to melt; that is a normal reaction.

Stackless Python is an alternative implementation of Python created by independent developer Christian Tismer. He started with the conventional Python language processor managed by the language's inventor, Guido van Rossum, and patched his own Stackless invention in place of a small but central part of Python's internals. Stackless Python is the result. This article introduces Tismer's technology and its significance. In future articles, you'll be able to read about how to make your own start at programming Stackless Python, as well as the prospects for a merger between Stackless and the main Python distribution.

Various Web surfing tasks that I regularly perform could be made much easier, and less tedious, if I could only use Python to fetch the HTML pages and to process them, yielding the information I really need. In this document I attempt to describe HTML processing in Python using readily available tools and libraries.