Archives May 2004

PyOpenGL Refactored (C APIs for Python modules...)
Written by Mike on May 24, 2004 in Snaking.

Spent most of last night learning how to create C APIs for Python modules (it's rather messy when you get right down to it). Basically, instead of a monolithic set of code linked into each PyOpenGL PYD file I'm planning to move all of the extended-API code into a seperate module. Then I'll move the ...

Technology makes hunter successful (But doesn't actually result in leaving cave...)
Written by Mike on May 23, 2004 in Vindaloo.

Canada 411 is basically our telephone listings search service as a web-site (done by the Yellow Pages people). Quite useful. One of the most useful services being the automatic link to maps of where a business is located. You can browse a yellow-pages category and when you find some shop you want to visit a ...

Pool cue hunter... (They're not spears, kiddies)
Written by Mike on May 22, 2004 in Vindaloo.

As you regular readers (all none of you) may remember, the children have broken gram's short cue, so her billiards playing has been... well... not quite up to par (even mine is suffering a little, as the walls of the billiards room are way too close to the table). So, today I set out on ...

Simplifications poking up from under the surface (Refactoring is calling...)
Written by Mike on May 21, 2004 in Snaking.

As I was reworking the code to do the group statistics last night, I had one of those glimpses of where to go that you look for in a design. A few seconds of clarity when the Platonic ideal of what you're creating pokes through the messy aglomeration that is a working and evolving system. ...

Sawtooth patterns (Group statistics are this evening's bugbear)
Written by Mike on May 20, 2004 in Snaking.

The problem with statistics is that it's often messy to calculate for measurements of the real world. You wind up needing to introduce all sorts of machinery either to artificially create a consistent measurement framework, or to track all the various exceptions and partial contributions so that the final measurement has some relation to what's ...

Fruitless night chasing performance... (A second or two of gain from 8-1/2 hours work)
Written by Mike on May 20, 2004 in Snaking.

Well, I really wasn't in the mood to work on the main project last night (just too keyed up from the 4 or 5 coffees at the management meeting), so I did some housecleaning (the computer kind) and then sat down to try to optimise PySNMP some more.

This package is starting to get a ...

Wow, that was just evil! (In the Company of Men)
Written by Mike on May 19, 2004 in Vindaloo.

Well, as I've been sitting here working on getting decent graph-drawing working, I've had a movie playing (ATI All-in-Wonder cards let you have a transluscent TV window over your work windows) which is a preview for the Independent Film Channel.

The movie In the Company of Men is... well... sociopathic. No redeeming characteristics for the ...

Drawing graphs with SVG (Using SVGdraw.py)
Written by Mike on May 18, 2004 in Snaking.

So, one of the goals for this stage of development is to provide higher-level overviews of the data, including graphical views. After spending a few hours looking at the various C-library charting solutions, I'm beginning to favour just creating the graphics as SVG vector images using a very lightweight library called SVGdraw. That will ...

Elegance is needed in teaching physics (It really is elegant...)
Written by Mike on May 18, 2004 in Vindaloo.

Everything in the universe is moving at light speed. Normally we move primarily through a temporal dimension, rather than a physical dimension. When we exert energy to move in space we can make the vector veer off from the temporal dimension, but we can't make it go faster than light-speed no matter how hard we ...

Where are the radical ideas in computer science? (Radical is not adding functional elements to Python, for instance...)
Written by Mike on May 17, 2004 in Design Theory, Snaking.

Here, for instance, is a radical (but not particularly new) idea in computer language design:

The computer records all interactions with the programmer and shares it's understandings of meanings and implications of any given set of events/contexts with all other computers in the system.

With every spare bit of processing and communications power, the computer ...

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