Author archives: Mike
Long day's slog... (Dragged back into the lion's den)
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Snaking.
Today I had to work on Cinemon again (Bryan and Tim dropped in to work on it). We are finally getting customer interest in building a hierarchy (major part of the functionality). Spent hours trying to use the web interface and eventually had to give up because it's way too slow on the machine. Wrote ...
Sometimes the silliest little things are the most frustrating (Enough to send one screaming back to urllib...)
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Snaking.
So, today was spent on (computer) house-cleaning and then looking at tools for the semi-automation of web-site reviews. It would seem to me that code something like this:
from twisted.web import client
df = client.getPage(
str(self.url),
timeout=20,
)
(though, obviously wrapped up in all the trappings of a Twisted app so that it gets called ...
(Partial) success with the free compiler (mxTextTools-nr and SimpleParse running...)
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Snaking.
Was able to get mxTextTools (with the non-recursive rewrite, for that matter) to compile with the MS Toolkit compiler. Haven't been able to get Numpy to compile because of a missing symbol (which appears to be ftol (as in float-to-long)), but darned if I can find anything which actually makes reference to the function anywhere ...
Oh, almost forgot... (There's a new release of OpenGLContext)
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Snaking.
There've been a few fairly minor changes over the months since Beta 1, so I just released a Beta 2, this *really* should be the last Beta before the 2.0.0 release.
Microsoft Free Compiler (Free-as-in-not-yet-working-for-me...)
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Snaking.
Have been playing with the free command-line Microsoft Visual C++ compiler trying to build Python 2.4a1 extensions. Seems that distutils will need to be patched to make use of it (if it's possible to use it at all). Going to spend a few more minutes on it then head off to bed I think.
GUI Library Evolution (Or, why we have "event" objects...)
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This popped out of Matthew Scott's comment; seemed a little too involved to be writing in a comment (and it's a slow news day).
Context: I'd noted that Matthew's code wasn't using one of the strengths of PyDispatcher, particularly it's ability to allow for unifying parameter names and filtering out extraneous parameters before passing ...
A fairly successful party (Though most of the normal crowd was missing...)
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Vindaloo.
Also had a chance to use the digital camera for once. Here, for instance, is Shane, one of the most interesting human beings I know. He gave Rosey and I a copy of Primo Cranium this evening just because I'd asked if someone could bring a copy for those at the party to play. He's ...
And so it ends... (Pretty much, anyway)
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Snaking.
Just checked in the last official changes to Cinemon. Didn't get a chance to work on the importer fixes, spent the whole day (and an extra 1/2 day for that matter) converting just about everything to the new-style UI. Need to get to bed now so I can get up early and get the shopping ...
Should I take a week off? (Unpaid, but a chance to catch up on languishing projects...)
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Snaking.
I'm considering whether to take a week of unpaid vacation to work on the various Open Source projects on which I've been falling behind. Particularly PyOpenGL and OpenGLContext, but also wxOO, PyTable and BasicProperties. PyOpenGL is the project that needs the most TLC, but all of them are needing some attention.
Thing ...
Cinemon work draws to a close (Hard deadlines focus the mind admirably...)
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So, at the management meeting on Wednesday we realised that we just can't afford to keep developing Cinemon with the current business arrangement. So, today is the last day of work on it until we manage to secure some funding.
The effect has been marvelous. No more working on long-term features, no more worrying about ...
Mike C. Fletcher, the VRPlumber, is a philosopher of design turned computer programmer based in Toronto, Canada. He works primarily in the Python programming language, and maintains a large number of Open Source software packages. You can reach him at: mcfletch@vrplumber.com.