Richard's stuff Aug 2003

Fri, 29 Aug 2003

On the removal of the ABC's independence (or just its funding)

Alston's mission to remove all government funding from the ABC took one further step yesterday, as he suggested that it "become a registered charity". The Liberals truly doesn't get the fundamental ideas behind the ABC, do they? Having previously suggested that advertising, or perhaps even priviatising the institution whose charter specifically calls for "an independent national broadcasting service". Because of course once it's privatised, and media ownership laws are relaxed... no, the ABC wouldn't be bought up by Murdoch. Nope.

path: /stuff | permanent link |

Wed, 27 Aug 2003

Random links

A collection of random links I've found interesting today:

"Misleading the ABC is not quite the same as misleading the Parliament as a political crime." The ABC just being the public. No problems misleading them!
"Or perhaps this is democracy, American-style."
"there is plenty of moisture in the sub-soil going into spring, and with normal weather patterns from now on, good crops are almost assured" phew ... just need some more water in our supply catchments (Melbourne is in its seventh year of drought) (just found an information-packed weekly update)
"I think we were doing weeding and it turned ... turned theatrical."
"Somewhere out in cyberspace, someone is having a good laugh every time this guff gets another run." (be sure to check the next story out too :)

path: /stuff | permanent link |

Tue, 26 Aug 2003

Roundup demo has moved

My web host has decided to block access daemons on their hosts (ie. no access to port 8080, or anything above 1024 for that matter). Therefore the roundup demo is now running as a ugh cgi-bin.

path: /python | permanent link |

Sun, 24 Aug 2003

Python / Ruby comparisons...

Jim, I would argue that "end" is line noise, thus making Python the winner :)

I have some nits to pick with the method lookup discussion too, but will just leave it at saying that "x[y]" is a dictionary lookup. "x.y" is an attribute lookup that can have nothing at all to do with a dictionary. Saying that it is a dict lookup isn't really a simplification :)

path: /python | permanent link |

Sat, 23 Aug 2003

Canon's new cheapo digital SLR

Canon have announced their latest digital SLR, the "digital rebel" or EOS 300D as it'll be known here.

OK, so it's still a little pricey (US$900) but that price is coming down with every new model they release, so I'm still hopeful that they'll be able to release one for AU$900 that I can plug all my EF lenses into.

That would be nice :)

path: /stuff | permanent link |

Wed, 20 Aug 2003

Like Regular Chickens

"'So, I just cut them up like regular chickens?'
'Sure, just cut 'em up like regular chickens!'"

path: /stuff | permanent link |

Tue, 19 Aug 2003

Random links

A collection of random links I've found interesting today:

"album sales up at all time high"
A Look at the Bible & Homosexuality
Lorem Ipsum, a description of the "dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry" with handy generator.
possibly not a real campaign poster

path: /stuff | permanent link |

Mon, 18 Aug 2003

CSV module ranting...

<rant>I've been using the CSV module from Object-Craft for quite a while now in various projects, including Roundup. Python's finally gotten itself a built-in CSV module. And early on there was talk of basing it on the Object-Craft module. Except somewhere along the way the entire API was thrown out and designed from scratch. The module still has the same name, so all my code that has "import csv" now breaks. The old API isn't even mutually exclusive with the new one.</rant>

sigh

I knew about this before Roundup's 0.6 release, BTW. Time to actually "fix" Roundup is a little lacking though. And the frustration at that makes me feel the need to rant about it now. Hey, I'm just one user who's been put out by this. I think the existence of any csv module in Python outweighs any incovenience to a select few users. But geez, there could've been a compatibility API...

path: /python | permanent link |

W00t... Roundup 0.6.0 is finally out!

The demo-mode (instant-gratification mode :) is really neat:

Download Roundup
Unpack Roundup "tar zxf roundup-0-6-0.tar.gz"
"cd roundup-0-6-0"
"python demo.py"
Play with the demo tracker

So go play with the package the 0.6.0 release of Roundup.

Other stuff I'm really happy with in this release:

web interface cleanups including nicer history display, nicer index navigation and nicer popup list windows
searching of date ranges
significantly more powerful form handling allowing editing of multiple items and creation of multiple items
tracker templates can contain subdirectories and static files (e.g. images) and we may now distribute templates separately from Roundup.
user registration is now a two-step process, with confirmation from the email address supplied in the registration form, and we also have a password reset feature for forgotten password / login
lots of speed enhancements, making the web interface much more responsive
fixed many issues with dumb email or web clients
so many other cool features... and bug fixes :)

path: /python | permanent link |

Mon, 11 Aug 2003

Module import fun

Just a little snippet of python wierdness :)

Python 2.3 (#1, Aug  4 2003, 10:17:00)
[GCC 3.3.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.2 3.3.1-0.7mdk)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> open('foo.py', 'w').write('a=1\nb=1/0')
>>> import foo
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
  File "foo.py", line 2, in ?
    b=1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero
>>> import sys
>>> sys.modules['foo']

>>> foo.a
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
NameError: name 'foo' is not defined
>>> import foo
>>> foo.a
1

Kinda quirky, but any self-respecting application should barf at the first error :)

path: /python | permanent link |