Richard Jones' Log

Wed, 27 Feb 2008
Language metrics from ohloh

ohloh tracks open-source projects and amongst other things has a neat set of tools that allow you to compare languages, projects, etc.

You can look at the relative number of commits to projects for Python, Perl, Ruby and PHP with C/C++ and Java or just just Python, Perl, Ruby and PHP. Python's doing pretty well with a popularity about the same as PHP. Also quite interesting are the plots of contributors and active projects (Java and C/C++ in decline). Then there's the huge dive in C/C++ commits in the last 6 months as seen in the plot of the number of commits per language.

Interestingly C# (about the same popularity as Perl or Ruby) hasn't made nearly the same splash in open-source as Java did.

Via the Python language statistics page you can also find out that Fred Drake is apparently the most experienced contributor of Python code. I'm not sure how they calculate that one since I'm listed as the 7th most experienced Python contributor but there's got to be others with more - Guido for example ;). The Recently Active Contributors list is also interesting to find out about active Python-based projects.

Fri, 22 Feb 2008
EEE PC woes

I've really enjoyed having my EEE PC during my commute. I've even gotten quite used to having it just balanced on one leg while hacking away on some random pyglet project or other (I think I have about 4 in play ;).

Unfortunately, the trackpad has just died. Actually, it's the trackpad and buttons. Something in the innards is telling the system that whatever button I press (whether the rocker button or a single tap on the trackpad) is held down. Once when I power-cycled the machine the trackpad didn't respond at all. I've tried resetting the software to no avail.

I'll be taking it in to the shop for a warranty claim tomorrow. I'm really hoping they'll just give me a replacement - otherwise I'll be lugging a full-size laptop around PyCon (amongst the 755-and-growing other registrants OMFG). Boo.