Archive for August, 2004
August 31, 2004 at 2:19 am · tags: Python
<disclaimer>
Men, this is pure love, I’m a geek and if you aren’t too, don’t read further.
</disclaimer>
In those days in my spare time I’m working on Matt Goodall’s Twisted Pastebin to learn using the framework and Nevow. The original version is very good but needed some enhancements so I put my hands on it and start working around. I knew nothing about Nevow and very little but with the help of the #twisted.web guys on IRC and with some tips given me by my friend Valentino “dialtone” Volonghi I coded a better pastebin featuring persistent cookies, syntax highlighting for about 30 languages, navigation UI (needs to be improved, it’s on my TODO list), export as text of pastings, a yet-to-be-coded archives interface (and perhaps a very simple backend to allow deletion and something like that). Ah! I forgot the main change (the real reason why I started the improving process): Atop, the Python OODB (based on Twisted obviously) developed by the Divmod team. So in a couple of hours I replaced the pickle based backend to use it.
But what excited me most is the thing that I’ve done two minutes ago. I replaced this bad bad code (I was too lazy to read again the manual, shame on me):
Read the rest of this entry »
August 26, 2004 at 1:15 pm · tags: Misc
When I approached the same problem recently, I kept putting it off, thinking that Python would be too slow and that this level of collision detection would have to be written in C++. Yet, when I finally came to think about it, I started writing some pseudocode (in Python) and to my surprise came up with a new solution to the problem after about 30 minutes. How did Python help? Well, quite simply, by using Python, I didn’t need to worry about types, classes, brain damaged idioms, memory management, or any of that other rubbish which doesn’t help you solve the problem. All of a sudden, I found myself using a language which allowed me to think about the problem I wanted to solve and nothing else. As an added bonus, the algorithm I came up with turned out to be fast enough in Python.
Would I have come up with the same solution had I not been using Python? Perhaps. I can’t help but think that I’d have also got there in Java, only not as quickly.
Does the choice of programming language affect the way I think? I don’t know, but next time I approach any programming problem, I’m going to use Python to do my thinking.
[from: perverted by the language]
August 23, 2004 at 9:56 pm · tags: Misc
As the rapper Jay-Z sings, I’m changing clothes and go, go where? You’ll see.
In the meanwhile I remembered a year old post written by the eclectic Mark Pilgrim and I changed the blog description accordingly 
Bye!
August 16, 2004 at 10:59 pm · tags: Misc
Just type in google this three keywords and press “I’m feeling lucky button” 
best programming language
agile programming language
programming language
worst programming language
hint: they are Ruby, Python, Python, C++ in this order
very funny
August 16, 2004 at 7:21 pm · tags: Misc
While I was surfing the web I’ve found this two bits:
Some programs seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=842242
…seems that quite every application on the planet will have issues with SP2
(hint: release early, release often)
…also seems that OSNews readers do have a lot of problems (but they aren’t alone)
Ehy IBM sysadmins: good luck!
Yet another reason to keep my Windows2K installed (but I’m in now way a normal PC user…)
Second bit (the most ridicolous one):
Windows XP Starter Edition
No more than 3 application running together, no more than 800×600, bandwith limited, no security… So, no more XP versions please!
They are poor not stupid!
August 13, 2004 at 12:49 am · tags: Misc
http://thedailywtf.com/
Only a word: cool!
Subscribed!
August 11, 2004 at 10:48 am · tags: Web
Anne van Kesteren came through well known (but invalid) IE blog mantained by the Microsoft Internet Explorer Team, seems all good except for a couple of sentences that made him (Anne is a male) laugh:
“We also came up with a very original idea – popup blocking”
Everyone but them knows that they are the last ones implementing popup blocking in a browser
and the second one:
“so it’s a heck of a lot more secure than pretty much any other browser”
That’s made laugh also myself but… let’s wait, we shall see if it’s really true
ps. don’t name “web standards support” (what the heck IE is made for if not for the web??) because they will ignore you
