After far too many hours staring at Cable and Swig code, I can now catch ITK C++ exceptions as Python exceptions. Yes, of course the resultant patch is pitifully small. See my posting. Once again I have come to the conclusion that a good source-analysing code editor such as Visual Slickedit is invaluable when trying to understand other people’s complex projects.
My New Addiction
Yesterday, a group of us went to a gaming and gaming history exhibition in Tilburg. It was marvellous to see (and play) all the games I wasted my time (and 20 ZA-cent coins) on as an arcade-frequenting dude. They even had an old Sinclair Spectrum 48K on exhibit… this is the computer I grew up on. In anycase, amongst one of the 120 games that you could also play, Paul introduced me to Bust-A-Move 4 on the Sega Dreamcast.
UN Human Development Indicators
Check your country’s UN HDI (Human Development Indicators) ranking by clicking here. The Netherlands are ranked an excellent 5th on this list with South Africa at a promising 111.
Python IDE wanted, good, cheap and fast. :)
When editing Python text, I usually use emacs on Linux and XEmacs on Windows. However, I would love a cross-platform Python development environment in the style of Visual Slickedit or similar. It should have code-completion (for the umpteenth time, dabbrev in emacs is NOT code-completion!), it should show calltips (incorporating the relevant docstrings) when I’m instantiating objects or calling functions and it should have some kind of graphical object browser. It’s syntax highlighting and auto-indentation should be at least as good as that of emacs.
Crash Different
MijKopThee, a popular Dutch blog, has a link to this cool clip of very, err, enthusiastic Mac user. Be warned, it needs a Windows Media 9 codec. Doh. For your reference, I like Macs. *pet pet*1 1 I’m petting my virtual Mac. Update September 13, 2010: Charlette reported in the comments below that the clip linked to above has disappeared. Some searching seems to indicate that the below Youtube clip is the same:
I’ve just been reloaded
Finally I too went to see Reloaded. We went to a particularly cozy little cinema in Delft called The Apollo. This is a “Service Bioscoop”, meaning that you have a little table in front of you and can press a button to have a waiter pop by and serve your favourite drinks and snacks. Smoking is also allowed. As we haven’t been taking part in this in- and exhalation-driven activity for a while now, this point isn’t so high up on the list of advantages, but it definitely does contribute to the cozy atmosphere.
Swapping variables without a temporary
This is from the first recipe in my brand-new Python cookbook. It’s quite obvious, but it hasn’t really struck me before. Well doh. In most languages, swapping the values in two variables means using an intermediate temporary variable, e.g.: int a = 1; int b = 2; int temp; temp = a; a = b; b = temp; With the tuple packing and unpacking in Python however, we don’t need no steenking temporary variables!
A quick Python note
Have a look at this brief snippet: In [2]: a = range(10) In [3]: 3 in a Out[3]: 1 In [4]: 3 not in a Out[4]: 0 In [5]: not (3 in a) Out[5]: 0 Input/output 4 should strike you as a tad strange if you don’t know Python that well but are familiar with similar constructs in other languages. At first glance, it almost seems like the sense of an operator can be negated with the not operator.
Python new-style objects and __slots__
This should be very useful: In [5]: class oldObject: ...: ....def __init__(self): ...: ........self.someVar = 1 ...: In [6]: o1 = oldObject() In [7]: o1.someVar = 2 In [8]: o1.someOtherVar = 3 This is of course expected behaviour. Have a look at this though: In [9]: class newObject(object): ...: ....__slots__ = ['someVar'] ...: ....def __init__(self): ...: ........self.someVar = 1 ...: In [10]: o2 = newObject() In [11]: o2.someVar = 2 In [12]: o2.
Python bookses
I broke down and ordered Python in a Nutshell by the Python guru Alex Martelli as well as The Python Cookbook, edited by Alex Martelli and David Ascher. Amazon UK will now proceed to bend my credit card even further, but that’s okay. It’s really flexible. EET VILL INCREEEZE MY PYTHON POWERS 10-FOLD, UND ZEN I VILL TAKE OVER DE WORLD!