New Year's Python Meme

So I'm a bit late to the party, but there's meme going around python developers to discuss what they've done/discovered in the past year in a q/a manner. So here's mine.

1. What’s the coolest Python application, framework or library you have discovered in 2009 ?

Would have to be Twisted. I've avoided Twisted for a while now since I was always told that it'd hurt your head if you tried to get into it and that it wasn't very pep8 friendly, but it turns out it has some pretty good tutorials (the Finger tutorial) and that a lot of the stuff is useful right off the bat (such as the chatserver).

Non-Python:
The Lua language. It's not that it's all that cool, it's just another language and not as nice as python, but it's pretty cool in that it lets you create mods for games pretty quickly (in this case Demigod.. which is a great game that needs some help at this point).

2. What new programming technique did you learn in 2009 ?3. What’s the name of the open source project you contributed the most in 2009 ? What did you do ?
New programming technique would have to be constructor patterns that I learned from a very good Flash developer and the Refactoring book that he introduced me to. I mainly learned it by working through the refactoring example with my girlfriend on a automation project she had for her work.

The open source project I contributed the most to would have to be the PIL and python-payflowpro and only in the sense that I submitted bug reports (tho I submitted work around code for the issue with PIL).

For 2009, I worked entirely on two large web projects. One an online trivia game, and the other a credit offset reseller site. The credit offset site was fantastic in that the code was completely developed with TDD and had about 10-15 tests per function. I didn't start a single class or function without having the test code written beforehand. The trivia game had the potential to be fun, but I had to make accommodations for stupid managers and constant changes to what was wanted. I simply should have said 'No' more often, but it's hard to do when your excited and want to make everything cool.

4. What was the Python blog or website you read the most in 2009 ?

I read Planet Python which is an aggregation blog of a bunch of well known Python bloggers... so I guess I've been reading lots of blogs. Also, lots of StackOverflow.

5. What are the three top things you want to learn in 2010 ?

3 things for python in 2010?

1. Hadoop and map/reduce. I'm already familiar with the concepts, but I'd like to get some actual experience with it
2. pyGTK and pyGame. I'd really like to get into gui programming.. even tho cli rules.
3. Ctypes.. I've been meaning to read up or do a tutorial on ctypes for a long time.

Non-Python:

1. How to make mods for games (in particular, Demigod). For a long time I've played games and kept notebooks on what was cool, what was stupid and what I would do differently in the hopes that I would eventually learn how to create a mod of a game. I've been investing a lot of time in games and there's a lot of stuff that I'd like to tweak. Demigod is very open to modding with the Lua language so I'd like to finally start and complete a mod for a game.