Dean Goodmanson: Slices of Py

The Hand of FuManChu PUTs POST in perspective

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 06:30:15 GMT

Referrer inspired communication is nifty. http://planet.python.org/ brought me this gem regarding semantics of HTTP's PUT vs. POST.

My recent encounter with this while digging about REST is the XML.com article "How to create a REST protocol" and the comments at the bottom.

It's neet to see weblogs in motion, with referrer references (logs, del.icio.us, aggregators ..) as a sole means of passive communication. Sam Ruby wants to use this to garner more iTune's attention to this, while this post gives you a recap of the general flavor of the blogging culture around a year (or two?) and some monts ago. I chuckled at how personality could not be subdued. It's currently at 66 posts, and I haven't caught up, or saw if Dave Winer has chimed in.

Go Seige

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 04:59:32 GMT

In getting to know more about Twisted, I came across Go Seige, the implementation of the game of Go into a "massively multiplayer game" which is built in Python and Twisted.

I wonder what David Goodger (of Go Utils and many others) thinks of it, or will blog about it.

Python assisted Segway clone builder makes an electric unicycle

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 04:25:09 GMT

That was a long title for The Electric Unicycle, of which I have not confirmed whether the Python and BSD tools he used in designing the Balancing Scooter applied.

Someday I'll come up with a good name for that category of life-goals including "riding a unicycle", "flipping your shoes like Mister Rogers'", and "writing a palendromic haiku." A callous observer is quick to quip something about an abundance of opposably thumbed time, to which I change the subject and ask them what's on TV tonight.

This post in honor of my 6 year old's achievement of riding his bike without trailing wheels on my country's independance day.

Current state of blogging

Wed, 25 May 2005 06:05:15 GMT

A day after Jon Udell summarizes this, Don Box spouts that.

This entries Commentary replaced with the following editorial:

I've not been in a mood to write lately. When I've tried it's accompanied with a grievance to have researched and experimented more, noted mostly by including way more rhetorical questions than I'm willing to commit for discussion or let stand as an empiricless opine. I've been in my current locale long enough to notice enough recurring tedium and will save you from that, even though I may be able to make my day to day non-profesional interests amusing. (Wish we could have lunch. Blogging has thankfully satisfied this gap for many years now.) Other topics such as Soylent Green Is Embreos and arm-chair Project Management Methodology notes are also lacking in either real world experience or willingness to dialogue cc:World. Perhaps I haven't the guts, but I've no ambition to alude to my current employer's industry activities. There's also the matter of getting all the appropriate hyperlinks in place and checking for blogosphere and Daily Planet's redundancies. And as I've said before, noting annoyances gets annoying fast. Stay courteous and enjoy the coming weekend.

Slices of SPAM

Thu, 19 May 2005 04:31:22 GMT

>> [self.amuse() for slice in SPAM[crazy:tasty]]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File",
line 1, in ?
ComprehensionError: comprehension underflow--THAT'S got SPAM in it!

Sorry folks, the consumerism is just a red herring.

Consistency, refined.

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 04:36:25 GMT

Consistency, although taken for granted, smells like morning fresh something that smells good when fresh in the morning.

I pretty much committed to buying a piano today. I've wanted one in the house since we had 2 kids. I'm giddy with consumerism and a sunny melting snow Friday afternoon. Moving it 1 mile across town tomorow's challange.

Zwiki BugDay seemed to go well. First one, to boot! I was at work then had unexpected company so didn't contribute more than the usual wiki gnoming.

Some thoughts on WikiWords: They are odd, but seem to extract an extra amount of mindshare (kind of like TLA's). Don't overuse them, but they have their place. When trying to name something, they seem to require effort, but when you're stuck in a meeting and topics and buzzwords are flying around reminding you that you haven't got a handle on them, they seem very easy to come up with. Write them down. Look up or create a page. (I wonder if a wiki can serve like the blank pile of paper used in Getting Things Done) My literary educated wife tells me we name things to feel in order to feel control over them. Makes sense. God told us to have dominion over the beasts and what-not and to name them. If knowing is half the battle, naming is the ....to be filled in later, along with links. Suggestions and thoughts, as always, welcome. ...consistent naming is another matter.

Greetings Python world. You've grown since I last blogged in your direction. So much that when if I sit on a topic more than 3 days, you've got it spread throughout the land. Jarno, doing well? Consistency factors keep me from adding to this fun driving analogy. Although I still think Apple is following the Volkswagen history, analogically speaking.

Advanced Python books

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 05:03:51 GMT

Where does one go to learn Python Idioms? One of the top referred resources is the Python Cookbook, found in living and book form. Jonathon Gennick has put out an request to submit entries to the Python 2.4 version of the cookbook.

O'Reilly's "Hardcore Java" caught my eye yesterday in looking, but failing to find the Zopista's Plone book in Borders yesterday. Would a similar Python book be useful? Necessary? Perhaps it's smarter to hold out for a Developer's Notebook covering XML or Twisted.

My perspective on advanced Python books is rather narrow, and so is the Python Wiki AdvancedBooks page.

P.G. O'Meme, Round II...

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:57:05 GMT

Paul Graham's earlier work pissed off a lotta product pushers. His latest clarifies, and thus I can enter this meme on the after schock.

Eric Sink duly noted, (to paraphrase liberally), that it's probably a bad idea to hire a zealout. Yes, I said zealout, he didn't. He said hire a profesional, and I think the moral of the story is, when remotely possible, to hire a hacker who is a professional. Hopefull those who read his article will read more than the last paragraph, and thus not conclude that hackers cannot be professionals.

Then what is a profesional hacker? (cue music) Passionate, but not militant. Expressive, but not zealous. Aggressive, yet adaptive. Smart, yet empathetic. Able to type-cast, yet dynamic. Can follow procedures, yet functional. Uses source control and bug trackers but makes it PERTy only when necessary. Results and collaboration. And finally: Proud, and not condescending.

Yes, I lean towards Eric's perspective yet have been influenced by more respectable (and just plain cool) hackers in my life to let potential short-sighted conclusions go unnoticed. Tact is a necesity and will go a long way. I've met as many tactless hacker consultants as I have smug "GPL is leprosy!" bandwagoners (sometimes both!) and since they both negate each other out of existance I'm (profesionally!) content with a product-shop wife with a hacker mistress.* I admit to having read the Great Hackers through nolstalgic eyes and generally feel most product-shops miss the point in regards to leveraging the hacker identity. My guesstimate would be that they only go as far as ThinkGeek, or worse, Despair.com. Frankly I find the term hacker about as saturated and misused as engineer. Funny how both hackers and shop-grinders like to be recognized for what they contributed to the community. 1:46AM. I digress.

*Wish I could remember the Pythonista who said "Java is my wife, Python is my mistress" in some comment thread...here it is. Values of Cool, indeed.

Perhaps I should add a link to the Slashdot comments, but I've found Slashdot's Read More... considerabley harmful.

For those wondering about the title, I enjoyed this book. Not that it exemplifies tact, and too bad G and J are only phonetically similar, but I'll stick with it. I wonder if Vonnegut is required reading for Comp. Sci. majors. It would likely get read, but would it help?

Wiki pages of note in no particular scale

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:58:03 GMT

ZopeWiki:ZopeCredits Add credit where credit's due. zope.org/credits are stale. Will this page offer a new light? Heck..somebody make that page a blog and put a person and there contribution in a weekly spotlight.

WikiWiki:ElizabethWiethoff is spreading Python goodwill and gardening throughout Ward's wiki.

MeatBallWiki:CommunityMarketing Marketing isn't just about gaining MindShare. Another set of interesting marketing devotionals can be at Eric Sink's "22 Laws of Immutable Marketing". Look Ma, Agile!

Scrum(Docs)Wiki:PigsAndChickens -- Don't throw the joke out with the metaphor. (Metaphor definition suggestion: Pigs are bound, Chickens are gagged. A scrum list replacement metaphor: Players and Spectators--I can't think of anything more accurate and personally look forward to bbq'ing the pig and chicken metaphor.) ScrumWiki.org is an implementation of Scrum management tools in a wiki. I couldn't find an appropriate page here other than the FrontPage.

..and now for something subtle:

Fragment Highlighting. Yum. Why was I expecting a Purple highlight?

A nicely laid out wiki.

Wikipedia:WisconsinIdea ... TheReformSociety

And finally, a succinct definition on the difference between a weblog and a wiki. via --and be sure to catch Tom Hoffman's 1 2.

conferences-discuss list is dead.

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:09:33 GMT

..or at least that's what 10 months of spam is telling me.

There is this unanswered entry.

I wonder if none of the readers noticed as SpamBayes filtered it all out. :-P Let OSCON come and go with nary a signal and let's mothball it and move the discussions to the wiki.

Planet Categories, blogging runoff...

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 04:09:06 GMT

Planet Python and Planet Zope have been announced this week.

My "Slices of Py" made the Planet Zope list, yet not Planet Python one. *shrug*, email sent.

I concur with Roberto Alsino that these groups need to define whether they're about a community or a topic. Many bloggers (/feeds) contain many "off topic" entries. Some of these bloggers have sub-category methods to narrow the feed, others don't. Those that don't and rarely post a topic based entry should be pruned from the list or re-trench with a blogging engine or scraper that does. Those that do, please email the admin with your focused feed. Examples upon request.

Ben via Live Journal, and a decent sized Python list

Sat, 29 May 2004 06:48:58 GMT

I think I came to "10:00 am - A Hundred Musts And A Should Or Two" via Artima Buzz. It rings with the dischord I've heard throughout my career, and find the Scrum folks testifying freedom from at the unshackled organ. Great writing, Ben. Windows users might also want to catch the ActivePython notes regarding process interrupting and version upkeep. The LiveJournal python-dev group holds quite a list. Have I overlooked an aggregated view?

<snip>rant on similar usage of "would be nice", "that'd be good", and other apparent un-documentables, followed by disenchanted baffle over Scrum (yearly redemption required) certification. Maybe more on that later. Criticize in private...wait for a reply...</snip>

And for what it's worth, the Google News Alert I subscribed to has yielded very few results, and removing the Google News button on the googlebar is a worthy measure in reducing information addiction. Did you have any different results, Jarno? ...and even though your blog has MOVED, it was fun digging up that link searching for various items entitled "Python owns object."

Computer Language Fireworks

Fri, 28 May 2004 06:23:13 GMT

Very fun thread on the Python Firework.

A few submissions from my history:

COBOL: A fully automatic cap gun. Does it's job, quite understandable, pain to load, tedium makes it quickly uninteresting.
Old School BASIC: Simple fountains. POKE them in the side to make it interesting, or gibberish and quite sporatic.
dBase: Snap-Pops. Works fine. Sure, you can tie a bunch together to make a somewhat powerful app, kind of like putting them under a toilet seat (tee-hee), but it's sure a pain in the
DOS Batch: Jumping jacks. Quick fix, tied together you should probably be ready to run, and expect a few duds.

Modern languages have already been covered....wait....there is one:

XML: Static pictures drawn from colored fire~~works~~. Pretty, looks way customizable, everyone likes it, but IT"S NOT A FIREWORK--there's no BANG, It's not a Language...sorry, got a bit carried away. Kinda like kids who wrote ANSI-Mations and claimed it was programming. Not something to rant about, but one does make mistakes.

Zoom Zoom Zoom....Putt-Putt-Putt

Thu, 20 May 2004 03:02:43 GMT

I wish I could remember where I clicked this from, but I saved it due to this line:

The golden rule of programming has always been that clarity and correctness matter much more than the utmost speed. Very few people will argue with that. And yet do we really believe it? If we did, then 99% of all programs would be written in something like Python. - James Hague

Such is reality. Now to learn how to build mental callousness to the reality of coded cleverness, grand organizational and pattern schemes pilfered with 3 line functions, all embodied in auto-typed documentation headers reading completely as "Summary of ClassName".

I can't buy a micro-sized economy car for fear of the 4 wheel-drive gargantuans zinging around central Wisconsin and into my family. But today, to spite them all, I drove my face-in-the-windshield speed-limit-cruising designed for simplicty 1973 Volkswagen Bus to work. :-)

"When a box-on-wheels is the basic need, a box-on-wheels is the perfect answer." - Heinrich Nordhoff

Useless Python bids farewell

Wed, 05 May 2004 03:41:18 GMT

Egads! Useless Python has retired!

I encountered this site first coming to Python and the humility and community spirit surrounding it struck a pleasant chord with me. Rob noted that the Python Cookbook fills the majority of the need. Perhaps, but it's rather hard to see the fun in a site this polished. Rob: Thank you for this peice of Python history. I hope your endeavors are a little less clouded with Useless Python basking in a Floridian sun. Here's looking forward to your next Pythonic venture.

Why did I go searching for something at Useless Python? In digging for some example twisted code to fire up a simple proxy server then add interesting stuff (ref. Jon Udell), I intended to head over to Useless Python and find my starting point. Most of the stuff I had currently come across was beyond the first stage I was looking for, or required spelunking the remaining twisted API basics. I felt rather like this. In digging at the proxy doc's I see I'll have to go digging at the basics as making an HTTPFactory a listener on a port 'as usual', is quite unusable for this n00b.

If you were to suggest to Jon Udell he post his proxy+mxTidy twisted recipe somewhere...where would you suggest? His blog, Twisted, Python Cookbook, Vaults of Parnassus...?

Zope Opera

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 03:26:02 GMT

The biggest thread I've seen at ZopeZen has been followed up by an open letter from Zope corporate. It's interesting in light of the fishbowl, and what happens when a walled garden grows in that fishbowl. Nice to see a (big) Zope name I didn't recognize follow-up to this related blog entry.

Meanwhile, Zope credits remain to be updated...

Sightings:PSU to GvR

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 04:47:32 GMT

PSU (nearly) spotted at ZopeZen. Search the page for "innocent", or cheat.

After reading the original posting of RMS' vision for GNU, I was flipping through the unix wizards archives and was did a double take: posts from Python's BDFL. Now following up to blog about it, I find that post not quite newsworthy, but did a search to find the "'Stamp Out BASIC' Committee" tagline [link] and note on C's introspection tool entries procured a smirk. Stamping out BASIC is spelled out here.

Daily Journaling Notes

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 02:19:08 GMT

Jeremy Hylton <a href="http://www.python.org/%7Ejeremy/weblog/031009b.html">notes</a> the importance of keeping good notes, along with a good chunk of sound advice from the article <a href="http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=69">Coding Smart: People vs. Tools</a> by Donn M. Seeley, which I finally got around to reading. I'd love to hear his review of <a href="http://www.cvstrac.org/">CVSTrac,</a> and whether it's feasible <a href="http://zwiki.org/CVSTrac">in a Zope scenario</a>. Ed Taekema has <a href="http://www.pycs.net/users/0000177/weblog/2003/10/16.html">noted </a>the use of wiki's in this area, along with several related articles. 'Coding Smart' felt slightly dogmatic, but appropriately so. The initial watch out--that new languages may kill your development time bugged me, as it's one of the reasons I've used to avoid writing testing apps in Python and redundantly tested manually. His other point that the new language may not be transferable to other workers I feel is a non-issue with Python. Idioms. Ouch, they are the difference between "Pythonic" and "Python", eh? I admit here I was setbacked. Was this general purpose programming language was leading down another esoteric path, reducing my psuedocodish Python to n00bish dribble or <a href="http://www.enac.northwestern.edu/%7Etew/archives/000072.html">unreadable</a> <a href="http://www.python.org/doc/current/tut/node6.html#SECTION006750000000000000000">shortcuts</a>? (*What cocky programmer wouldn't claim to be able to pick up another language in a few days, let alone <a href="http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2003/10/08/sig_quote_of_the_day">debug it</a>? ) Later Seeley moved into "use psuedo-code", which I dug but raised an eyebrow to, Given Python's readable code and experiment and validation capabilities. Python does add a lot of value here, and of course not everwhere. I'd like to tie in frustrations of trying to communicate in user stories when peer coder speaks in schema tweeks and algorithms, or that generally good problem statements inherit the solution, but won't. Peer reviews are also cool when common values are apparent and personal dogma is chained. Outlining. +1. This is what <a href="http://www.pycs.net/sqr/2003/09/24.html%20">I use Word </a>for. My college business professor (and many others) repeatedly recommended keeping a profesional journal. I've never been able to keep up a paper journal. My <a href="http://zwiki.org/PersonalWikiExplanation">personal wiki </a>is primarily "notes to self" and similar links. Good notes in change logs are critical, and prefer then to be tacked within the source, as a "blog within a file" type of thing. Code diff's are no replacement, and are far from convenient--especially when trying to grok code and it's history. My personal wiki has a <a href="http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/FrontPage">blog apsect</a> with entry form on the front page. This causes more blog and less wiki, but without it the time it took me to figure out where to put the resource would derail many of my intentions. Thought of the day: When folks complain about documentation, what part of knowlege management has failed?

Purple Browser Plugin wanted...pity the foo

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 01:57:48 GMT

I like Purple Numbers and the linking/reference power they bring. The current implementation may be sacrificing aestetics for precision. I find myself wanting* a browser purple plugin to reference non-linkable sections of the web. I'll note thoughts on that after recent scenarios:

Tim O'Reilly notes that the FOO shindig was a party and organized under those norms in a comment at this weblog post. Search for "Hey guys".
After reading the Anders' Artima interview regarding virtual foo, I was left wondering whether I "pity the foo()"
In considering recent micro-content links I realized that my Square Rutabaga tag-line is far from precise, technically.

On to purple numbers plugin thoughts...

Plug-in has the capability to add purple numbers to any page in view
Toolbarlet that lets me hide/display numbers for any given web page
Algorithmic details and issues therein are for a later closer look
Numbers are lower priority than name and id tags, but those are purpled when purple numbers are toggled.
Most importantly: Purple numbers become the third leg in the "horshoes and hand grenades" accuracy world of an ever changing web.

Accompanying server...

As all browsers won't be up to speed or easily accessible, an accompanying service to translate a page into a include purple numbers would be useful, if not validating.

* I haven't researched Purple Numbers or the discussions enough to know if any or all of this has been listed, built, or shot-down.**

** Blogging: Where sincerity trumps credibility.

Fox Trot/Techie ode to Bart Simpson

Tue, 07 Oct 2003 05:34:35 GMT

The Fox Trot cartoon last Friday hit home. This post includes a nice short example of the never ending polish that techies crave.

I was tempted to comment, but will leave it to my own blog entry:

for i in range(500): print "I will not throw paper airplanes in class."

Throwing a few questions over the wall..

Thu, 02 Oct 2003 03:51:37 GMT

I feel like I'm 2 keywords shy of a good google search on most of these issues. After spending the evening reading through Bill Harlan to earn enough karma to ask:

Microsoft Natural keyboards are loud. Headphone penetrating focus thwarting loud. Any suggestions?
Is there a definitive regular expression for UR[L|I] address matching?
Do you have any suggestions or resources for learning large chunks of (plain) code? Does your approach differ if it's a. pattern peppered OO, and b. of it is on top of partially and to-be-learned commercial and proprietary libraries?
Is using a dial-up Windows XP (home) box as internet gateway (or DHCP?) for getting my future Linux setup internet connected (similar to my current Win98) unreasonable?

I feel like I'm 2 keywords shy of a good google search on most of these issues.

I don't know if this is that Bill Harlan, but I found it amusing. Aahz's sig. "'It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code.' --Bill Harlan" brought me to my this investigation

Thoughts on code audience

Wed, 01 Oct 2003 07:20:42 GMT

CP4E get's regularly noted when folks talk about expanding Pythons m???share by commencing more programmers. Similar to the "create, don't overtake, markets" thought.

Mats Wichmann threw this discussion an appropriate curveball by asking: "If Python is so easy for humans to program in, shouldn't it also be an easy language for programs to program in ...?"

Fredric Lundh addresses the literal issue here.

I have never analyzed code generation from UML tools before, but a comparison of model to code from a C++, Java and Python example would add insight here, although the tip of the iceburg for Mats thoughts.

Jeff Sutherland threatens: "Therefore, American programmers must find a way to be ten times as productive or they are history", following it up with the dire need for Model Driven Development and resources. Hmmmm... Python & Java: a Side-by-Side Comparison opens with "A programmer can be significantly more productive in Python than in Java. How much more productive? The most widely accepted estimate is 5-10 times".

Wizards fall in there somewhere also, but are just one slice of that taxonomy. I like task automation wizards and that let me save the steps for later use, ideally in a plain text editable fashion. Which leads to...

Embedded Python for "code that pushes applications" is also an area where python could use more face time. VBScript is a tired poster-boy, and it seems that with the latest OpenOffice/STAR Office, the window of opportunity is being addressed with Python-UNO.

Also, of note: Learning Tree's Python training is no longer supported! Many alternatives exist, including this one during October in Colorado by a University of Wisconsin graduate.

Python news emailed via Google

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 20:27:11 GMT

I came across Google News Alerts today. I've subscribed to Python language stuff via the following link: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?q=python+language+-snake+-monty.

Improvements welcome.

Referral Roundup to Garbage and change, man.

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:53:04 GMT

Fun stuff in my search referrel log lately*:

And thanks to movin' man Mad William Flint:

google: cosmic rutabaga

...."Garbage and change, man. It's all just garbage and change." sic., Mad William Flint.

Need a new gadget to count that change?

* I left out many ones I wanted to add that didn't make the first page of the search. My apologies if any of the above links don't lead anywhere near this site.

Python eggs

Thu, 25 Sep 2003 02:21:56 GMT

The "Python eggs" site is nifty.

Watch it grow at the Wayback Machine.

(psst. Don't forget SpamBayes, and if not too much overkill, link that logo. ;-))