News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

an_hn_reader

I like using NamedTuple for dot notation access, it's a good middle ground between dicts and custom classes.

Pandas must use something similar under the hood to provide dot notation access to columns. I wish h5py did the same for hdf5 objects. In py3, I find myself needing to type list(X.items()) and then list(X['Y'].items()) and so on when I'm exploring a new dataset... fairly awkward for interactive use.

On predatory open access journals and Beall's list: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

quote "There is another list—one that journals fear. It is curated by Jeffrey Beall, a library scientist at the University of Colorado, Denver. His list is a single page on the Internet that names and shames what he calls "predatory" publishers. The term is a catchall for what Beall views as unprofessional practices, from undisclosed charges and poorly defined editorial hierarchy to poor English—criteria that critics say stack the deck against non-U.S. publishers."