Tao of the Machine

Things NOT to do in 2003

• Buying your kids a karaoke machine.
• Buying cats. (Phew!)
• Buying a compiler book with C++ examples.

CODE

The page says: "CODE: Designates a fragment of computer code." OK, so let's try to display a few lines of Python.

def f(x, y): if x > y: print "foo!" else: print "bar!"

Does this look good? Not quite. That's why I use the pre tag instead:

def f(x, y):
    if x > y:
        print "foo!"
    else:
        print "bar!"

Anybody knows what the code tag is good for?

New year's resolutions

• Get my own domain name. (I would have already if I could make up my mind about a name... :-)
• Read comp.lang.python more. (And post more, if I have something useful to say...)
• Write some articles and essays. (Python-related, probably) Or maybe stories.
• Create a worthy successor for Kaa, or evolve Kaa into something better.
• Make a new website, possibly with the program mentioned above.
• Create a network game. (Probably a strategy game, I've had some ideas about this for years...)
• Start hacking (on) the Mac.
• Learn a bit of Java. (Mostly because I might want to use Jython.)

XBEL

It's a Mac's world

For example, the tendency of Unix programs to put stuff (or look for it) in your home directory. Windows doesn't really have such a concept, not like Unixen, so I never used it and never saw the benefits of it. Now that I have an iMac running Mac OS X, things become more clear. You store a binary and libraries in a central place (e.g. for vim), then different users keep their .vimrc files in their respective home directories. Much nicer. Making backups is easier too, since binaries (and in general, files that don't change a lot) are separated from profiles, user-generated files, work, etc. I assume that if software is correctly installed, you just backup your home directory (and maybe a few others). This never made sense to me on Windows, but now it's crystal clear.

distutils fits in this pattern too. On Windows, I never really used it. What's the point? It's not hard to copy files and directories to a directory that can be "seen" by Python. And compiling C extension modules with it is a no-brainer, since I don't have a (compatible) C compiler. (Dev-C++ and Cygwin's gcc don't count.)
On Darwin, everything's different, though. I just installed gadfly. distutils happily copies it to certain directories. Same for kjbuckets, which was compiled (using cc) first. All test pass. Nice.

I can't wait for Mac OS X Unleased to get more out of my Mac. ^_^

Greatest misses

Like the time that Mark Rosewater did his darndest to explain why leaks (card spoilers coming out before WotC officially released them) are bad for us. That was laughable, and purely written from a marketroid point of view.

This week they goof in a different way. It's the holidays, and to celebrate the editors have decided to give us... repeats of the best articles of 2002. Yes, that's right, we get to look at old articles every day. For those who don't know the site: every weekday a new article is posted, which is usually informative and/or funny, so it's worthwile to come back every day and read the new stuff. Except for this week, when we get old articles.

But wait, maybe articles are taken off the site after a certain time, so it makes sense to read the best old articles again? Eh, not really. All older articles can easily be retrieved in the archive.

Even the Q&A section rehashes old questions! But at least they're funny.

Elaine Chase: "I'm actually the only girl who plays Magic. Besides being a Magic developer and a level 3 judge, I'm also on the Magic rules team, so I make sure to tell the templating team to use 'she' a lot. Every time you see a 'she' on a card, it's talking about me."

LXF

There is no actual application code yet, but I wrote a module that manages the link collection, and reads and writes collection in the LXF format. This is an XML-based format that I hacked up myself. Nothing fancy; it just stores information about URLs and categories.

Here's an example with just one URL and some sample categories:

<lxf version="0.1">
  <meta>
    <author>Hans Nowak</author>
    <updated>2002-12-22 13:30:00</updated>
  </meta>

  <categories>
    <item name="programming" />
    <item name="python" parent="programming" />
    <item name="perl" parent="programming" />
    <item name="zope" parent="python" />
    <item name="important" />
  </categories>

  <collection>
    <link>
      <url>http://www.python.org/</url>
      <title>The Python homepage</title>
      <description>*The* place to go for all things Python.
      </description>
      <category>
        <item>python</item>
        <item>important</item>
      </category>
    </link>
  </collection>
</lxf>

The general direction of the program isn't entirely clear yet. Some crossovers come to mind... what about storing local links (shortcuts) to applications, and launching those apps? Or, what about mixing it with the "stalker" idea (keeping track of when a web page changes and notify you)? But maybe those belong in separate programs...

More Mac troubles

So I tried playing some .avi files. Quicktime should be able to handle them, but complains that it cannot play them. That may be a matter of getting online and getting the right codec; maybe later, I didn't feel like crawling behind my desk to move the modem cable from the PC to the Mac. I will have to test that some other time.

An .mpeg file, then? Nope. Quicktime complains again. I'm not sure it's a matter of a missing codec here. Then I tried my Video CD (Princess Mononoke, I "won" it on Ebay but the box only contained disc B; the seller promised to correct the mistake but I haven't heard from him since). Nope, that didn't work either.

I haven't been able to play any of my movies, which doesn't really speak for the Mac's multimedia capabilities. Or for my intelligence, maybe. :-)

So far I've been struggling with the Mac over basic things, but at least I'm using it (or trying to). I ordered Mac OS X Unleashed from Amazon today, that should get me up to snuff soon. Not for my Quicktime problems of course, but if I want to make it my main hacking box, then I need lots of insider info.

For a weblog that regularly contains Mac OS X tips rather than complaints <wink>, see bbum's rants, code & references. And it's Pythonic too...

My new mp3 player :-)

So why am I not using it?

Hmm. One reason is that I don't have a good work place to use it. It's standing next to the Windows computer (which I use for work), and due to its position on the desk, it's awkward to put a chair in front of it, the keyboard is hard to reach, and the mouse even harder and it has little space. In other words, it's not easy to use it for a long time.

Another reason is that I cannot use Python to its full extent (yet), the way I can on Windows. I hack on command line tools, Tkinter apps (like Kaa), and wxPython apps (like Charm). Tkinter and wxPython don't work too great yet on Mac OS X (using Carbon, of course).

On top of that, there is lots of stuff to learn, and I don't have too much time (and reason #1 makes long learning sessions awkward). Lots of annoying things get in my way, like bash and vim settings, programs I don't know well, etc. I'm sure most of these things can be solved once I know more, but until then, it's just irritating.

So I figured I can start using the Mac for mundane tasks. Like playing mp3s. Turning the Mac into a music box. There is this program called iTunes, which seemed suitable. I don't like it too much though, because it doesn't let me do what I want. How can I add one mp3 to the play list? I don't have a clue; drag & drop doesn't work. It works for folders, but the moment I dragged & dropped a folder, it proceeded to import the whole CD, not just the mp3s in that folder. Hmm. This software is a bit overzealous. If I cannot select individual tracks, then there's simply not much reason to prefer iTunes over WinAmp. (MacAmp, anyone?) Yes, this seems a minor complaint, but I do this kind of stuff all the time.

If anyone knows how to "tame" iTunes, let me know. In the meantime, I study the Missing Manual again.

Update [11:18 PM]. According to the MM, you can select certain files, then select "create new playlist" and everything that is selected will be included in the new list. This is not really the same, but it will do. Different computers, different customs...