technology: November 2004 archives

Python, Parrot, and Chicks

[ rakaur on Tue Nov 30 at 03:26 PM // category: life, programming, relationships, technology ]

Not that any of the new features really interest me at all. The new “sets” seem to me to be what arrays are in Ruby (lists with lexical magic for operators; I thought you could do this with lists anyway?). Function decorators anger me. They seem a big cheesy hack to avoid adding some keywords. What’s so bad about static def?

In other news, Parrot looks promising. It’s a register-based (most are stack-based) VM that was originally designed to implement Perl6 but aims to be language-independent as to offer a suitable VM for other bytecode languages like Python (Ruby, as of now, uses ASTs for parsing, but I believe they plan to implement a Parrot compiler anyhow) to run faster in (Perl is decent, Ruby is slow, Python is slower than frozen piss running uphill in the snow). They say it already goes faster than Perl5 (a good accomplishment in itself). Also, it allows for the bytecode generator to be implemented in the language that it’s compiling (Python bytecode compiler written in Python, etc). I’m not sure how they do that yet (bootstrapping problem anyone?), but it looks to be very neat.

Parenthetically.

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned el chicko. I tried to get a friend to talk to her for me, which is pretty bad. But you know, considering every time I see her my brain turns to jello and I’m lucky to not make a complete cock out of myself, I don’t think it’s such a bad idea. I really like her, and it’d be a shame if I never even at least let her know, even indirectly.

That was the worst run-on in the history of the English language.

I digress.

I have actual work to do. Work that pays. So, naturally, I’ll be going to do my homework now instead of my real work (because making a profit would perhaps give me a little something to be happy about and I insist on completely destroying my self-esteem especially by attaching myself to girls I don’t/won’t know etc this isn’t psychology).

On a side note, I keep seeing my checkbox for “photography” under my “category” thingy, and I keep realizing how much I miss my camera. Oh shit, that reminds me, I have a yearbook meeting in about four and a half hours ago.

Whoops.

-- rakaur // 2004.11.30 @ 03:26 PM

Programming Ruby

[ rakaur on Sat Nov 20 at 06:00 PM // category: programming, technology ]

I’m serious, I want this.

I’ll give you… I’ve have nothing.

-- rakaur // 2004.11.20 @ 06:00 PM

Perl RE

[ rakaur on Sat Nov 20 at 01:14 PM // category: programming, technology ]

Perl-specific regular expression extensions suck.

Stop using them.

-- rakaur // 2004.11.20 @ 01:14 PM

I Hate Titles

[ rakaur on Thu Nov 18 at 05:05 PM // category: life, programming, relationships, running, technology, web ]

About time for a blog update I suppose.

I did some weight training last night with a friend who actually knows what he’s doing. It sucked. I’m hurting bad today. We went running immediately after, and it seems as if I’m becomming worse rather than better.

Speaking of running, the girl I like mentioned to me that she runs. So today I asked her about running together after school (that’s like, the most outright “let’s do something together” thing I’ve done) but she runs at the YMCA whereas I just run around town. Oh well, I tried. She has a boyfriend anyway so I don’t know why I keep doing it to myself.

I’ve been working a bit on a Python Markdown. It’s insanely harsh. I don’t know Perl, so I don’t know what half of it is about. I can get maybe half of that half out of the PHP version, but I’m still in the dark over the rest. I think I can do it, bit it’s going to suck and it’s going to take a while. Should be a nice little pet project though.

As for right now: it’s raining and I’m so sore that I’m not going to bother running. I think I just need to run more often; however, I rarely have someone to run with and running alone sucks. When I run alone there’s no incentive to keep me going, so I just stop and walk a lot. That doesn’t really help so much.

-- rakaur // 2004.11.18 @ 05:05 PM

New Layout (Volume III)

[ rakaur on Tue Nov 16 at 07:38 PM // category: programming, technology, web ]

And here it is.

The only thing that isn’t finished is post editing… which you don’t care about anyway (and I can just edit the database manually anyway).

It seems fine in Gecko (Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape/Galeon/et al) but it looks like shit in Opera (of course Opera is a giant piece of shit anyway). I don’t know (or care) about IE.

Feedback plz!

-- rakaur // 2004.11.16 @ 07:38 PM

Holy Shit, I Did Something!

[ rakaur on Tue Nov 16 at 07:42 AM // category: eawr, programming, school, technology, web ]

I actually did like three weeks worth of math homework last night. And about two weeks worth of Physics, and some Economics worksheets.

And I worked on the new blog! Amazing!

I have a physical today though. So don’t expect any work.

Worthless cocks.

-- rakaur // 2004.11.16 @ 07:42 AM

Compulsory Blog Update

[ rakaur on Fri Nov 12 at 10:11 PM // category: life, programming, relationships, running, technology, web ]

Not much happening in the land of Eric lately.

I’ve been running. It sucks. I have varying degrees of success. I tend to eat and then go running shortly after and do poorly; however, running without eating for a few hours tends to yield better stamina.

I still haven’t finished the new site. The only thing left (besides the Markdown situation) is comments. I haven’t delved into that yet because threaded comments aren’t fun to play with.

I still can’t talk to Kayla.

My legs hurt.

-- rakaur // 2004.11.12 @ 10:11 PM

New Layout (Volume II)

[ rakaur on Wed Nov 10 at 06:50 AM // category: programming, technology, web ]

Okay, so everything is done for the new layout (except blog comments, and blog posting). However, there remains the problem of Markdown.

The hack I have in place right now works, at the cost of quite a bit of overhead. At the moment, it takes about two seconds to parse all the blog posts for one month (and about 11 seconds to parse them all). I need a native Python parser for it. I guess I’ll end up writing one myself (not that I know how).

I’d need someone that knows extensive Perl or PHP and Regular Expressions.

I may go ahead and put up the new design using the current hack though. I mean, what the hell?

Just need to finish the blog stuff…

-- rakaur // 2004.11.10 @ 06:50 AM

New Layout

[ rakaur on Mon Nov 08 at 06:14 PM // category: programming, technology, web ]

Okay, so I have a new site design done. The main problem is Markdown.

Markdown is the markup language I use to format all of my publications. The problem is, Markdown is written in Perl. This blog is written in PHP (which I hate), and uses PHP Markdown. The new blog is written in Python (because I actually enjoy writing things in this language) and there is no Markdown parser for Python.

I have three options, ordered in preference:

Write my own Python Markdown. I’d love to do this; however, Markdown is an insanely complex syntax to parse, and I wouldn’t be able to do a port of the Perl Markdown for crap. I could try to do my own from scratch… maybe. Maybe I could understand the PHP one better than the Perl one, at least.
Use a PHP script and PHP Markdown to do the processing. Use Python’s urllib to send the text to Markdownize to the PHP script. This involves opening a socket, sending the text, letting the PHP script invoke and process the text, get the formatted text back, and do something with it. This is the solution I’m using currently, but it’s insanely high overhead. Unacceptable.
Use Python’s os.popen() to pipe the information into the Perl Markdown script and grab the output. This is insanely high overhead, and definitely not acceptable.

If anyone has any ideas I’m all ears. Until the Markdown situation is resolved I can’t put up the new design (breaks your hearts, I know).

-- rakaur // 2004.11.08 @ 06:14 PM

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