Bruce Eckel on (the Zen of) Python

Python makes it really easy to totally ignore the features you don't use. He mentions meta-programming in this article - I don't even know how to do that with Python. I'm sure it's cool stuff - but I don't care about it.

I guess stuff like templates in C++ are the same way - but in C++ you've got a lot of lower level stuff to think about too.

Like just a few days ago I was reading about C++ and found out that the ++abc was faster and creates less objects than a abc++. The little, itty-bitty small details like that, that you should know (in order to optimize your code) really come out and bite you in C++.

At least they do me.

Today was not fun.

Python has a library that does diffs - they call it difflib (for obvious reasons).

Except I haven't figured out how to use those diffs anywhere. I can't run them through patch - they're like no other diffs I've seen.

Maybe I'm not passing the right switch into patch. But it looks like I'm going to have to write my own patch library. At least I'm writing in Python, so it won't be that hard - but that's 2-4 hours that I don't want to spend right now.

For those of you In The Python Loop: Am I being stupid and not passing the right value to patch? Or do I really have to write a library so I can actually use these diffs to patch stuff?

If I have to write a library... gah. Is there some sort of Boost for Python? I'm sure others would like this - and they might just like this in the standard library.

I finally broke down and got a license for NetNewsWire. Now instead of editing my entries in a text field in a web browser, I can do it all in a nice little app.

It also feels a bit different from the Lite version - the controls feel different somehow, and there's a subtle difference as to how the interface looks.

Haven't tried any of the extra features - this is my first time with the weblog editor actually (but I'm liking it).

It's come to my attention that I may need newer pictures posted somewhere on the site. The one on the about page is all black and white, and old (I don't have a beard anymore). Need some color ones.

If I have a spare minute tonight I might do it.... just maybe.

Sad day - I've had OmniWeb on my dock for years. Very sad to see it go. Maybe I'll check out Omniweb 4.5 when it comes out - I may. Although I don't know the reason to.

I used Omniweb for years, because it was fast, didn't take up much processor time, and did NSText inline spellchecking. That was great, and such an improvement from the (now dead) IE 5.x.

And it was yet another browser to check my CSS code on. When I was beginning with CSS I thought there was a lot of bugs in every browsers implementation. Well, some browsers do have CSS bugs - but 80% of the time it's an issue with my coding somewhere. Maybe the structure, maybe. Maybe I'm stupid and don't have width:100% to force it to go all the way across the frame. Those kind of things.

Having only 2, 3 real rendering engines will decrease the quality of my code, I'm sure of it. Although I always cursed at OmniWeb 4.2's non-implementation of simple things like the border selector.

By the time my code has gone through OmniWeb 4.2, IE 5.x, Mozilla, and Safari, and renders correctly, then it's solid.

Maybe I'll have to check out iCab on OS X... maybe.

Oh, btw: to you code-monkeys out there: the JavaScript Console/Debugger in Mozilla really really rocks. Thank you Moz team!!