Geekspeak

Python : The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

2009-09-28T06:43:00.000-05:00

Recently, I started to really jump into learning Python. I'd been interested in it before; the live interpreter was awfully handy and it seemed like another good language to pick up. For whatever reason, I wrote a couple trivial programs in it and never really got back into it until a few months ago. Since then, I've wound up rewriting a couple Perl + shell scripts in the language and really liking it a lot. What follows are my impressions after trying the language out for a little while.

The Good

Python is really easy to learn, almost stupidly so. Much like my early days with BASIC on an Apple II, I can jump right in and try new things in the interpreter to see if they work as planned. This interpreter is also a very nice way to play with and test a half-complete script in pieces before letting the whole thing run, which is terribly handy.

Overall, Python seems to go out of its way to be really helpful; even if you don't have documentation handy, it isn't difficult to dissect a module and figure out how you can use it thanks to the dir and help keywords. Most documentation I've run into is surprisingly useful -- informative without being stupidly verbose.

Speaking of being verbose, I can't help but draw some comparisons to Java here. Python is certainly object-oriented, much like Java and C++ but it lacks those languages' distinction of being wordy and obnoxious. Yes, lots of things are objects, but you really don't notice unless you want to. Python doesn't seem to care what paradigm you use when programming.

I've also noticed that the various libraries available in Python are really helpful; tools like Mark Pilgrim's Feedparser make handling RSS and Atom a fucking breeze. You give it either a url or a file name and it figures out what you mean on its own and parses it into a homogeneous data structure. This saves me a lot of time compared to poorly-maintained junk like XML::Simple or some of the other XML parsing tools out there. This seems largely prevalent in the community as a whole; APIs are ridiculously easy to use I've found. pyAudere is another example; in roughly three lines of code, I can have a sound card initialized, an audio file (most formats supported, and it'll figure out what you mean on its own) loaded into RAM, and played back. I don't know that I've replicated such a feat with other tools.

Which brings me to something else I've really liked; the functional programming primitives that are readily available in Python. Tools like map, reduce, and filter and of course lambda are all just sitting there waiting to be utilized. These are awfully useful if you're hacking at Project Euler for fun, but quite handy for more typical usage.

As a new user of the language, I don't think that I can escape commenting on whitespace. For the most part, Python's whitespace rules are exactly what you should already be doing in the first place and as such I don't really see them as an issue. Lately, I wish that Java had a similar mechanism for when I have to read other people's code.

The Bad

Python is constantly evolving. Right now, there are two major branches of the language, the Python 2 version family and Python 3. Within Python 2, there seem to be three significant versions (2.4, 2.5, and 2.6). Here's where the fun begins; I wrote a program on my netbook which had Python 2.6 installed as that version seems to be both current and well-supported by major libraries. Python 3 has some nifty changes, but it seems that a good number of libraries don't support it yet. This will undoubtedly change in time, but right now I only play with Python 3 a little bit and tend not to use it for anything I'm trying to really work on.

Normally when there's multiple versions of a language, it would seem a simple task to just avoid other versions. I did however bump into issues with this, and while it isn't Python's fault, it is annoying. I wrote a script on my netbook, tested it and everything, only to have it crash when I ran it on the Debian box at home. The problem? I was using a string formatting method that wasn't supported in 2.4 (the default version on the system) but was most certainly present on the copy of 2.6 on my portable machine.

I'm also not a fan of how bugs just seem to lie in wait with Python scripts. Because Python scripts don't get compiled at runtime like Perl, I've been bitten by the occasional bug hiding down an obscure branch of a program, such as a syntax error or type mismatch that I never noticed before. Being new to the language, I often make late discoveries about things returned by objects, or member functions that are apparently missing in today's version of the language. This is highly irritating to me.

While I haven't run into this, I have heard tales of poorly-behaved editors in collborative projects utterly wrecking a script because one was using tabs and another turned the tabs into spaces (and so on). It's a little alarming to me that an editor can break a build that badly, but this isn't something I've run into in practice.

The Ugly

That multiple versions problem I mentioned? It can rapidly escalate into its own special world of pain and suffering. Again, this isn't really a problem that I pin on Python's tail, but it has been a bit of a headache. While downloading and building a version of the Python interpreter isn't an arduous project, it seems that the standard library isn't assembled for you in the process. My current installation of 2.6 on Debian 5 is halfway braindead because at no point in the configure script did it bother stopping to say, "hey, you need a current version of simplejson for this to work!" or anything like that. Even better, the instructions supplied when I attempted to make these things were not accurate. I think I know how to fix it, but I'm bothered that this should be an issue. Oh well, it could be worse; evidently there's problems getting it to build at all on OSX 10.6.

Conclusions

I'm really liking Python as a tool, and have barely looked back at Perl for the most part. I like Perl regular expressions better and how they just flow into the code as opposed to Python's re module, but that's mostly an issue of culture shock for me. Otherwise, I'm finding that a lot of my projects just work better, and seem to do so with less work on my part, which is really the important thing.

2009-09-08T20:50:00.001-05:00

Internet down since 0945 today. Mediacom cant send a tech until thursday - when im in michigan. Useless.

Everything is Better With METAL

2009-08-08T17:26:00.001-05:00

I think that they should run this clip by Mastodon before movies.

PSA

2009-08-07T07:48:00.001-05:00

Parents, remember to talk to your kids about black metal before somebody else does.

Or else!

Movies : Primer

2009-08-03T05:14:00.000-05:00

If you don't have time to read my blathering today, take one thing away from this post : See Primer if you haven't already.

I've been watching more movies lately as I finally broke down and got a Netflix account. While I have seen a fair number of pretty good films, I am reminded that Sturgeon's Law is in fact quite true. Not to mention that in an era where "science fiction" seems to mean "tits and explosions, but they're in space" it seems that really good science fiction has been hard to find, at least in the cinema. Still, there are good movies to be found if you look hard enough, and one of the best that I've seen recently is an obscure independent film called Primer.

Primer is about a couple engineers producing computer parts out of their garage and then trying to take things to the next level. They attempt an experiment with superconductive materials and are surprised by anomalies in their test results; further examination of the data reveals that they have created a device that may well allow them to travel through time. Once they've confirmed that this is the case, they ask themselves "what do we do with this?" Instead of bewildered disbelief and grandiose plans, they approach the use and circumstances surrounding their time machine in a fairly convincing manner; they're actually aware of time travel stories in popular culture and approach the situation as carefully as they can.

Also, the fairly natural dialogue of the movie is something I appreciated; people interrupt each other. They speak in jargon without explaining it to the audience. Between this and their fairly believable reactions to the situation as a whole, the character became very human and believable. It's also nice to see that the entire story was moved along by the characters instead of increasingly implausible situations. There's no villain or monster waiting to devour them. There's no plot to assassinate a famous leader or anything like that -- it's all about the people and one great big "what if?"

Anyhow, I really liked this movie and don't want to go into it too much for fear of revealing the plot. Suffice to say, I really liked it and recommend taking the time to watch it twice.

2009-07-30T10:13:00.001-05:00

138/84 we are good to go!

2009-07-29T07:15:00.001-05:00

If I worked in human resources, I would change my name to Giger.

Quickie

2009-07-23T09:11:00.002-05:00

Here is a short but funny clip about pseudoscience in today's culture.

Never heard of this guy before this morning; caught it on Pharyngula this morning.

Podcasts: Metalcast

2009-07-22T03:50:00.003-05:00

It isn't often that I write about this particular form of media; out of everybody I know, only one actually listens to podcasts at all. Anyway, I've recently become hooked on Metalcast, a weekly one-hour music show featuring a mix of songs by various heavy metal bands.

Anyhow, I have rarely listened to music podcasts before and didn't really know that there were good ones out there. The first one I listened to was terrible and another was only "almost good." Metalcast is completely unlike those so far -- I've enjoyed every episode so far and find that it's really top-notch material on the whole. They consistently play a good sampling of tunes, and don't typically waste a lot of time introducing the songs. Audio quality is good on the MP3 version and probably better on the standard M4A feed.

They've been running since 2006 and have 119 episodes in their archive right at this moment. Many of their episodes are basically grab bags of interesting songs and just as many are specials focused on specific bands, sub-genres, and even countries. If you're into metal, there's no way you won't find something worth checking out.

Best of all, I'm hearing new and interesting music that's very well-selected by people actually interested in what they're doing. It's like radio, minus the HORRIBLE SUCKING SOUND. I strongly reccomend this show to anyone who might be remotely interested in it. It's really worth checking out.

Gamestop Sucks

2009-07-21T00:01:00.001-05:00

This is something less than news, but I just thought I'd take a moment to point out that GameStop has managed to sink my opinion of them to "Internet scammer" or at least a bunch of incompetent buffons who have never heard of "customer service" in their lives. To be clear, after hearing stories about the lengths that Nordstrom's would go to to serve customers, I have to conclude that GameStop is the anti-Nordstrom's.

Back in May, I got a copy of Guitar Hero: Metallica from my Dad, and really enjoyed it. However, as this title is based on the GH: World Tour engine, it sometimes uses a feature that my normal guitar doesn't have -- the little slider bar near the base of the guitar. Generally, this isn't a big deal, but I figured it might be nice to pick up a guitar made for the game and it wouldn't hurt to have a second one around anyway.

My options seemed pretty limited; most place I went wanted to sell me the guitar + game for about $90, which struck me as pointless since I didn't want the actual game, just the guitar. At best, one shop told me that if they had the PS2 guitar in, they'd sell it for about $40-$45. Of course, nobody ever had one in stock.

Back in June, GameStop started a sale of copies of various plastic-instrument games to clear out their warehouse. I looked idly and saw that it was an online only deal, and that the PS2 version of the game with the guitar was listed at $34.99. Perfect; It was like getting the guitar for $5 to $10 off and another set of songs for free. I figured "why not?" and placed the order.

In about a week or so, I finally got the package from the UPS guy and discovered that they had sent me the Xbox 360 version of the game. So, I called customer service and explained it to them and they confirmed that there had been a mistake and e-mailed me a return label to send it back.

Awesome; now I have stupidly-large box to send back and no vehicle to get to any UPS store with. I have no printer to speak of, AND the clowns at UPS won't print the label if I bring it in on a flash drive. I wound up hauling it to work on the bus, printing the label there and having the UPS driver there pick it up.

Then, I wait.

The package gets delivered to them quickly enough. Then - nothing. No phone call, no e-mail. I give them a week and then call on a Friday afternoon inquiring about the order. They tell me that they have to find a copy of the game yet. Annoyed, I wait another six days before calling again. They *still* can't find it.

Horseshit; it does not take that long to find something in a modern warehouse unless those in charge are completely incompetent. At this point, I'm not seeing any option other than calling my credit card company and filing a fraud report. Sending me something other than what I ordered is understandable. Leaving me hanging and fucking around instead of sending what I bought and paid for this long is unacceptable.

Fuck Gamestop.

And UPS, while I'm at it :P

One Long Month

2009-07-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

I was going to avoid posting this story until it was all done; however, it seems that these things just don't end. I've had a lot on my mind recently, and this story has been at the center of it.

For the most part, June 12 was like any other Friday; I ran some errands, cleaned up around the house a bit, and fell asleep in the afternoon while a Linux install was running on my test machine. Between an additional computer running and having turned the air conditioner off, I was sluggish when crawling out of bed. I saw that my voicemail had a message waiting for me -- from work. I listened to the message and heard exactly what I've been dreading for months; our company had been outbid for the site I worked at. The good news was that most of us already at the site were to be retained in our current positions.

What bothered me was that I wasn't sure what to do; stay with the client and change companies after three years, or stay with my current company and leave the client high and dry? After all the client was specifically asking for us to stay, and we had considerably closer ties with them.

Also, I was offered another job with the same security company for significantly higher pay; another couple dollars an hour for a position in a nearby town. This weighed into the decision too -- my company was right out the gate with another position for me and recognized that I was doing a good job, something I didn't expect from the giant company coming in. I did the diplomatic thing and told him that I'd have to think about it (as I hadn't heard the offer from their rivals yet.)

There was to be a meeting between myself and a representative from the new company after work one Wednesday morning, so I met with her and was surprised to have a lengthy job application dropped on me. You could fill out less paperwork than what I was handed and get a house loan. I filled out what I could, but had none of my references handy, nor certain details about previous places I'd lived and so forth. I asked if I could take it home to finish it, and was told that it was against company policy and that I'd just have to do it another day. Fine.

At that point, I was becoming convinced that I should stay with my company; they came right out of the gate with the job with better pay. That, and I didn't have to apply for my own job. I know it's something that the new company needed to do, but it bothered me anyway. So, I called my company and said I was interested in the new position.

They never called back that day.

Or the next day (when I called again).

Or Monday.

So, the next time we were scheduled to meet with the new company, I brought all of my references with me and handed them to the representative and filled out the mountain of paperwork in front of me. I can't sit around and hope that they'll get a position for me, and the job I've had for the last few years has been optimal for school. I figured that at this point, the story was over and everything from here on out would be fairly dull.

Wrong.

I had a physical and drug test scheduled for that Thursday, which went badly. My blood pressure was very high -- alarmingly so. The doctor said that he wouldn't sign the paper for me to work and that I should go see my doctor, get on some blood pressure medication and come back in a week. Problem was, I didn't have a week.

I told the company contact and my immediate manager about this and there was some alarm; at the site, we really can't afford to be down another officer. We're down one and another is about to go on maternity leave. If I were out, not only would I be out a steady paycheck, my co-workers would be reduced to three people covering a six-man post.

Well, I went to see a doctor at the free clinic on the following Monday and when she saw my numbers and family history, she sent me to get my blood drawn and put me on some medication. I've got to say, the meds work pretty well; I haven't had a headache since I started them and a test on the following Thursday showed that I was getting a bit better -- not enough for the one doctor to sign my paperwork, though. Panic ensues :P

I had my blood drawn on Thursday morning (ugh!) and got a call about it while in CPR training that day. High cholesterol, high glucose. Worrisome; high blood pressure/heart problems and diabetes run in my family. I was asked to come back in on the following Monday.

As for work, my boss, the company contact, and the representative of our client leaned on the new company's HR person until I was given two more weeks to bring my blood pressure down enough for the doctor.

I went to see the free clinic doctor again on Monday and she didn't like where my blood pressure was, so she put me on another pill and recommended a few things to look for in terms of changing my diet. In a slightly ironic twist, I was also told to walk two miles a day. Anyhow, I've been doing everything she said and even keeping up with the walking. I figure that by the time the 24th rolls around, everything should be done. As it is, the transition to the new company was Monday, and I was even the first officer on the site.

Wednesday, though, saw a twist that rather freaked me out; I got a phone call saying that they never got my references. Frantically, I called the company contact and asked what the hell was going on. I had thought that all of this was resolved quite some time ago, but having it coming up again was just absurd. Hopefully, that's been resolved.

So, officially, it's still not over. I could be utterly screwed in the near future, or everything could be fine. I'm really sick of all this waiting and just want it to be done.

Coming Soon...

2009-07-17T07:51:00.000-05:00

I should be back to updating regularly on Monday. Posts are already in the queue.

Strange Journey?

2009-07-17T07:35:00.002-05:00

I don't know, but the photo looks like the Second Impact.

Anyway, what came up in my feed just this morning was an announcement that Atlus has a preview site for their next game up, and somebody with more skills/patience than myself has pulled the relevant bits out.

Shin Megami Tensei : Strange Journey

Neat?

I'm far behind on this series; There's at least five titles that I can think of that have had U.S. releases on current hardware that I haven't touched.

The Stars Are Right!

2009-06-28T22:41:00.001-05:00

This is least as plausible as any of those Chick tracts. Well, Dark Dungeons was totally real, anyhow.

I should print this up and keep them with me for the next time someone implies that I wasn't born okay the first time.

2009-06-05T07:17:00.001-05:00

In detroit, return trip also going smoothly. Should be home soon.

2009-05-27T14:13:00.001-05:00

Everything good so far; in minneapolis now, connecting flight leaves in just over an hour - on time, amazing.

Words fail me.

2009-05-25T01:12:00.003-05:00

One of the more amusing movies to get lambasted on MST3K was the infamous Hobgoblins. Fairly amusing on its own, this movie was outright absurd and seemed to be a cheap imitation of the more popular Gremlins franchise. Over the top acting, poor sets, weak plot and an unpleasant 80s stink make this an instant classic in the world of bad movies.

Jokes about a sequel have been around for a while, and much to my surprise, one came out last year in June. I think I'll have to rent this and become dangerously intoxicated in the process.

Hobgoblins 2 trailer

Wolfram Alpha

2009-05-20T23:37:00.003-05:00

After months of hearing about Wolfram|Alpha from the usual sources, I thought it might be interesting; instead of a normal search engine, it's supposed to assemble data and put it together for you in a cohesive manner. For example, if you enter "Long Island, NY" you get a map of the United States, a little red dot indicating where Long Island is, the population, and the area.

That's all well and good, I guess. But this isn't anything more than Wikipedia already does (with varying degrees of accuracy.) It does a few other neat things involving mathematical formulas and such, but I can't seem to convince the damn thing to do much that's actually useful. Even as a web site, it's damaged to begin with; you can't run a query without javascript turned on. It's one thing to enhance your page with the language, it's another to require it to function. As it stands, this is pretty brain-damaged web design.

But, when it comes to actually doing anything, Wolfram|Alpha is fairly useless. I've found that all queries fall into four categories:

Trivial: Something you could have just as easily gotten from another source or that you just threw in there to see what would happen.
Bad Input: Queries that aren't trivial are often too complicated for the site to parse, leading to the site asking you for something simpler.
Too hard: When you actually make a request that's simple enough to be understood, but detailed enough to be useful, the site complains that it can't handle the request because of limitations of the server. Awesome.
Jokes: A subset of "trivial" queries. You'll be pleased to know that asking it for the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. You may also note that I was able to tell you this on a static page with no amazing software behind it.

If their ability to parse requests improves and the server capacity issues die down after people find it useless, it might become a useful tool. Right now though, it seems like a bad punchline to a poor joke.

Koyaanisqatsi on YouTube

2009-05-09T18:47:00.004-05:00

Just like the title says.

This is a film I really enjoyed, and even have the soundtrack on my Mp3 player. The audio and video quality on YouTube is fairly good for the format, but I still strongly recommend finding a copy of the DVD and befriending someone with a projector.

Anyhow, my hat is off to MGM for posting the movie.

2009-05-06T07:32:00.001-05:00

I need to find a better way to bounce SMS messages than is offered by the fail whale.

Some Topical Fun

2009-05-02T09:49:00.002-05:00

Time for some fun with Google and current events:

Type "do I have swine flu?" into Google.
Press "I'm Feeling Lucky"
PANIC!

2009-04-23T06:30:00.001-05:00

Fedora 10 wont even boot from a live CD. Color me unimpressed. :(

Lizard Luncheon

2009-04-18T06:42:00.000-05:00

I've finally had some opportunities to test a deck that I've been working on and the initial results are quite promising. Right now, it has won eleven of twelve games I've played with it, which is certainly a good sign. Consequently, I'm more seriously considering going to the local Friday Night Magic tournaments to see if it really holds up against actual players. Here's the deck list:

Creatures (32):
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Tukatongue Thallid
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Sprouting Thrinax
4x Nantuko Husk
4x Scarland Thrinax
4x Hissing Igunar
4x Algae Gharial

Spells (4):
4x Grave Pact

Land (24):
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Karplusan Forest
2x Savage Lands
5x Forest
3x Mountain
6x Swamp

This deck was inspired by a post on mtg.com by an author who was quite excited about the Scarland Thrinax acting as a second Nantuko Husk in a Grave Pact deck he had been playing. Without looking closely at the deck list, I wound up with an early version of this deck and quickly brought it to the revision above. Even a couple control decks had problems keeping up -- not to mention the prevalence of cards which read "counter target non creature spell" wind up leaving their owner up the proverbial river.

The addition of the Hissing Igunar was because of how much it reminded me of the Disciple of the Vault that caused so much trouble several years ago. When it hits the table, I get another way to deal damage to an opponent that they can only do so much about. When combined with Grave Pact, each creature that dies on your own side is worth a point of damage to your opponent. Even worse, it makes dropping a board-clearing Wrath of God a painful proposition. Frequently, two of them on the table would be enough to make my opponent scoop right on the spot. Other creatures in the deck prove to be formidable as well; between the Gharial's shroud and the actual threats in the deck having a tendency to get very large, it's often difficult to get rid of any valuable material.

I've considered a few changes; one that was pointed out to me was the addition of some Sulfurous Springs to the deck to make it easier to hit the important three black mana mark for casting the Grave Pact. While the Elvish Visionary doesn't directly fit the theme, it does make the deck a touch smaller and does serve as food for the other critters. The birds are starting to seem superfluous at this point as the mana acceleration has been less important than mana fixing. Manamorphose is looking like a good option; it's a quick mana fix and it replaces itself in your hand. Another thought is the seemingly omnipresent Kitchen Finks. A little life gain plus a two for one deal when feeding my critters certainly isn't bad.

One other addition that sounds promising is Cauldron Haze. Handing out persist to my creatures just before a Wrath wound certainly be nice, not to mention it would serve the purpose of making some creatures edible a second time around -- notably the Sprouting Thrinax. It would even help get another use out of the lowly Tukatongue Thallid as it would come to play just long enough to die and sprout another saproling.

Anyway, I'm glad that I've managed to make something in standard and have it fare pretty well at the college. We'll see where it goes from here.

Spellchecking blog posts about Linux and about Magic is always a fun activity; there's so many nonsense words involved!

2009-04-16T08:50:00.001-05:00

It seems that this site is now imitating twitter. The horror, the horror.

New and "Improved"

2009-04-16T08:33:00.003-05:00

It seems that Debian Lenny is a great success in making Linux more "windows-like." That is to say, it has become finicky and obnoxious with a tendency to irritate the user.

I've been using Debian since September of last year and liked it for the most part. I managed to get a minimal system installed with fluxbox running on top of it for a pretty responsive system. My main gripe with it was that it was a bit antiquated and newer programs that I might want to try simply wouldn't work because glibc was a bit too old.

Recently, I've had the opportunity to try the latest iteration of Debian, 5.0 a.k.a. "Lenny" and I'm a bit irritated by how it has behaved. At least, I'm bothered by the xserver it comes with which is apparently "new and improved!"

I installed Lenny on Proteus (my test machine) and found that it didn't ask me any questions about screen resolution when I installed xserver-xorg-core, which was a little puzzling. I had to add some other package to even get the startx script, which presented me with an ugly and misshapen desktop. Normally, I run in 1280x1024 @ 60hz because that's what my monitor supports. For some reason, this wasn't clear to the system.

I brought up a terminal and tried xrandr to find that it didn't know about the resolution I needed either. I tried a few reccomended tweaks to xorg.conf but nothing seemed to help. Out of curiosity, I installed Debian 4.0 on the test machine to see if maybe there was some specific issue with the card. When I did that, it worked perfectly on the first try.

Here, I attempted to be clever; I took my xorg.conf from the test machine with everything working as expected and stashed it on my main box, reinstalled 5.0 and copied xorg.conf back over to the test machine. No dice; it's behavior was exactly as muddled as before.

Very, very, sad. I'm out of ideas.