Sunday, 6 June 2010
Users read only first sentence
During the work on Python documentation somebody joked that users look only at first sentence. I would say that in the Age of Twitter it is a rule. So I should swap the first two sentences (and switch to microblogging).
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
How to say that Debian bugtracker suxx
"Email bugtrackers suxx."
Every time you feel inconvenience while reporting, monitoring, subscribing, changing status or answering bug report in Debian, feel free to add this magic token at the end of message. It is easy, doesn't require any specific knowledge, but more importantly - it can be automatically parsed one day.
Every time you feel inconvenience while reporting, monitoring, subscribing, changing status or answering bug report in Debian, feel free to add this magic token at the end of message. It is easy, doesn't require any specific knowledge, but more importantly - it can be automatically parsed one day.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Sphinx PDF with rst2pdf
I deliberately omit word LaT*X in my post to avoid missing people who add '-LaT*X' in search queries. Yes, it is possible to generate PDF with Sphinx without LaT*X in cross-platform way. Yes, on Windows too. You will need only rst2pdf. Actually integration with Sphinx is well described in rst2pdf manual (text and PDF), but people find it hard to find this information, so I'll quote checklist here:
- install rst2pdf
- register rst2pdf in your conf.py Sphinx config
extensions = ['sphinx.ext.autodoc','rst2pdf.pdfbuilder']
- run
sphinx-build -bpdf sourcedir outdir
Friday, 23 April 2010
Why Far Manager and Vim are awesome
Far Manager and Vim are both console tools. When non-computer folks see blue panels of Far on my screen they are usually surprised like "DOS? But why?". These folks still remember DOS windows (DOS Windows, huh), but if some fourteen years adult tells me something about DOS it will be my turn to be surprised.
Far Manager is essentially a Windows console Swiss Army Knife. Much like Vim is for Unix. While GUI tools are awesome, they are not as responsive as console ones, not deterministic - I know it sounds horrible, but it just means that at any given moment you can't be sure what a given combination of keys will do. It depends on the focus and this focus is not always clearly visible. Interaction using mouse is slow (if you're not a hardcore gamer, of course). But I actually written this post to say that:
You don't need to press "ENTER" for most used commands and that is awesome!
In Far you may setup shortcuts as easy as pressing F2 and then Ins. Every action is reachable as a series of key presses. You don't need to put you hand off the keyboard to reach the mouse. Forget about mouse - you will need it only for copy/pasting. You may easily automate repeated key pressing by using Ctrl-. then typing the keys you like and then hitting Ctrl-. again. You'll be prompted for a key combination that will invoke the keys you've just written. Repeated edits, replacements, file renames, copies - a lot of things can be automated using this shortcut called Macro.
Another from many Far features you may find awesome is output redirection. By using edit:< prefix on the command line you may redirect the output to embedded editor and navigate around it as you like. With Colorer plugin you will even get syntax highlight for the output.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Porting Python applications from Unix to Windows
os.open
Note the difference between open and os.open and ensure that all os.open calls have os.O_BINARY flag for Windows.See also Stani and Nadia talk about cross platform application development and distribution
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
URL parameters in action method of HTML form are lost for GET request
Surprisingly how experienced web-developers may miss some basic nuances of form processing that exist for many-many years. One of them is the fact that URL parameters added to action attribute of <form> element are lost for GET requests.
Example:
The parameter "missed=one" is missing from URL after clicking a button on a form with GET send method. It is present for POST form though.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Query string from action attribute is killed for GET request</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="getSearchForm" action="?missed=one" method="get">
<input type="text" name="q" value="s" />
<button class="searchButton" type="submit">GET</button>
</form>
<form name="postSearchForm" action="?missed=one" method="post">
<input type="text" name="q" value="s" />
<button class="searchButton" type="submit">POST</button>
</form>
</body>
</html> The parameter "missed=one" is missing from URL after clicking a button on a form with GET send method. It is present for POST form though.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Working with complex issues
Some issues should be cut into chewable chunks and linked together into a dependency tree. Each chunk should be accompanied by "digestion recipe" that includes tools, skills and necessary ingredients. If the issue is very complicated, the chunks may be split in pieces that take no longer than one day to get the chunk, analyze it and solve. The work on the issue can then be spread over the looong time.
This requires tools. Tools to minimize waste of time on getting all necessary stuff to start work, save work, send it in one day and wait for it to be approved. Learning these tools should also be quick to get the task done.
Life is short, so time savers are critical. Cheatsheet template with already filled address of contacts, repositories etc. can greatly reduce the time to get the thing done. Once template is filled, it is the a cheatsheet that can be commented with new information for this specific task. These comments can then be incorporated back to original template or into a new, for more advanced usage. If making a reusable template is just one hour, and solution for the task is one day - a template one day and the task the other is better.
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