what about me? » programming

a better .pythonrc?

Bob — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:22:09 +0000

Over on this blog, I pointed out a bug in some code. Stupid blogger won’t let me format a better version, so I’ll post it here:

try:
    import readline
except ImportError:
    pass
else:
    import rlcompleter
    import os.path
    import atexit

    class irlcompleter(rlcompleter.Completer):
        def complete(self, text, state):
            if text == "":
                readline.insert_text('\t')
                return None
            else:
                return rlcompleter.Completer.complete(self,text,state)

    readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")
    readline.set_completer(irlcompleter().complete)

    # Restore our command-line history, and save it when Python exits.
    history_file = os.path.expanduser("~/.pyhistory")
    if os.path.exists(history_file):
        readline.read_history_file(history_file)
        def save_hist():
            import readline
            readline.write_history_file(history_file)
        atexit.register(save_hist)

    # Clean up the namespace.
    del readline
    del os.path
    del atexit

would Camus’ code be elegant or absurd?

Bob — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:16:14 +0000

Or both?

[T]he single biggest predictor of likely aptitude for programming is a deep comfort with meaninglessness.

who’s a lazy bum?

Bob — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:45:38 +0000

I’ve always been happy to read that laziness in a programmer is a virtue. How much work is it really to open iTunes, make sure the Music library is selected, click File->Import, navigate to the desktop, select the folder that contains the songs I want to add, pick that folder, wait for the import to finish, switch back to the desktop, and finally drag that folder of songs into the trash?

Too much work for me. Just typing it all tires me out.

So here’s my first Automator workflow, saved as a Finder plugin.

You can download it here.

Open it, then File->Save As Plugin…, name it, ‘Import into iTunes’, and now it’s just right-click on that folder of songs, then More->Automator->Import into iTunes.

Time for a snack.

how many columns is correct?

Bob — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:02:17 +0000

My first elisp function knows.

(defun eighty-columns ()
  (interactive)
  (set-frame-width (selected-frame) 80))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c 8") 'eighty-columns)

simple descriptions of recursion, monads, and closures

Bob — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 03:05:13 +0000

Joachim Durcholz gives the simplest descriptions of recursion, monads, and closures that I’ve run across in a post to comp.lang.scheme: