Appendix A. Free and Open Source Software Resources
This appendix is a listing of the various tools and library add-on modules mentioned in this book, but it is by no means an exhaustive listing. There are many excellent open source software packages available for working with Python on both Linux and Windows systems, and I would encourage you to explore websites like SourceForge and Berlios for other alternatives. The main site for Python, python.org, also has links to other Python-specific packages that may be of interest to you.
- Python 2.6.5 sources
- http://www.python.org
The official Python distribution website.
- http://www.activestate.com
The website for ActiveState, a Windows-centric distribution of Python. Includes some tools unique to ActiveState’s distribution.
- Integrated development environments
- Boa Constructor
A basic IDE for Python that also includes a full-featured GUI designer.
- Eclipse
A powerful Java-based IDE that uses a plug-in (PyDev) for Python support.
- Idle
A multiwindow IDE supplied with the Python distribution packages from python.org.
- PythonWin
A Windows-specific Python IDE supplied with the ActiveState distribution. Also available as a separate package from SourceForge. Roughly equivalent to Idle.
- Add-on libraries
- pySerial
A cross-platform interface library with support for RS-232 standard serial interfaces. pySerial provides a file-like API with methods such as
read()and
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