Mon, 08 Jan 2007

Found photos

I just stumbled across superfluous.com while looking for something completely different. It's a small collection of anonymous photos found discarded on the street. The site invites you to think about the possible histories and stories behind the pictures. Somewhat haunting. See the About page for more details.

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posted at: 11:22 | permalink | comments

Fri, 05 Jan 2007

distutils is no good for distributing applications

I've been trying to use distutils to create an installation framework for a little Gnome applet written in Python that I've been working on. After struggling with it for a few hours I've decided that it's really not going to do what I want.

The main problem I have is that I need to substitute parts of some files with the final installation paths for various data files. distutils doesn't provide such a capability and bolting it on yourself in a reliable way is rather difficult. I've tried all sorts of ways of extending the distutils core but everything I come up with is fragile, breaking if the user specifies a custom --prefix. It seems that I'm not alone.

I suppose I'm pushing the boundaries of distutils a little too far. Its really intended to distribute Python modules not Python applications. Still, modules that require external data files (outside of site-packages) would run in to similar problems.

I may have to learn how to use autotools or perhaps just roll my own scripts and Makefile. I'd love to know if there's some other alternatives.

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posted at: 20:27 | permalink | comments

Starting with Ruby

This excellent read from Arto Bendiken has inspired me to do 2 things:

  1. start learning Ruby
  2. keep going with learning Scheme which I haven't touched much since I started teaching myself on the plane to Australia
I hunted around for some Python to Ruby guides and comparisons and found the following useful links: Now I just have to make some time for all this. I still want to keep contributing to Yum and starting doing a Dutch language course as well (my Dutch isn't too bad but I want to get a let more proficient). Yoga is on the cards as well. I'm sure it can be done with a bit of planning and enthusiasm.

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posted at: 16:22 | permalink | comments