Recent blog entries for titus

This TDD anti-pattern catalogue is truly excellent!

--titus

I'd like to find an MSU student to report semi-monthly on python-dev. The student would be responsible for monitoring the python-dev mailing list and active PEPs, summarizing substantive discussions in a public forum, and integrating feedback from the community. This would be a 1 credit CSE independent study course (CSE 490). Additional effort (for more credits) could be applied towards building and maintaining a CMS site to store and reference past and present summaries, or integrating reviews of new modules.

The ideal student would be someone who communicates well in writing, is interested in technical reporting, and has some basic experience with programming. Python experience (CSE 231) is a plus.

Please send a brief summary of interests together with a sample of writing to ctb@msu.edu.

--titus

Apparently the ipaddr module in Python 3.1 is disliked by some, and there was a reasonably robust discussion on python-dev about how it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Guido finally ruled: ixnay on the addr-pay.

This is pretty relevant given the twitstorm caused by Zed Shaw's ludicrously self-confident rants about how he always knows best and is a kickass programmer and oh, by the way, the Python stdlib is kinda lousy in places. I think the thing to take away from Zed's rant is that the Python module addition process is, in fact, moderately FUBARed, with some people able to add perhaps ill-considered modules while others have to struggle to get the time of day. (Aahz's solution is good -- require a PEP.)

It's relevant personally, too, as I dig my way through some of pygr's modules. It's way easier to add code than it is to refactor it, especially if you don't have a lot of unit tests; if you want to retain backwards compatibility, you're basically doomed. DOOOMED, I say! And that's why the Python stdlib has so many issues.

(Incidentally, nothing against Zed Shaw -- obnoxiousness is his public persona, and he's definitely worth listening too -- but it is funny to realize that all his articles contain arguments that boil down to "he always knows best and is a kickass programmer." I especially liked his statistics rant.)

--titus

OK Folks, I know that planet.python.org and planetpython.org underwent a merger, and during the merger a new, or patched, or somehow upgraded version of planet went into effect on both. However, I cannot find a link to the info post any more.

I would like to put the latest stable version of PlanetPlanet into effect on the Google Summer of Code/Python site but I am wary of using the devel repo without any inside info. (I am currently running 2.0, which is the latest official release.)

Should I use the dev repo, or should I track down whatever version planet.python.org is using?

thanks!

--titus

Just submitted this on Thursday:

Next generation sequencers are beginning to impact agricultural biology. Over the next few years, next generation sequencing will produce incredibly large datasets that will address structural (e.g., SNPs, CNVs, indels, methylation, translocations) and functional (e.g., RNA expression, transcription factor binding sites) variation in genomes that will provide detailed insights that could explain phenotypic variation. Despite this immense power, next generation sequencing in agricultural animals will not be used effectively due to the lack of easy-to-use computational tools to support data analysis, and the unique needs of agricultural animal genomes. We propose to build an easy-to-use Web interface that incorporates several existing mapping and post-mapping analysis programs for next generation sequencing data that will greatly empower agricultural researchers. We will also provide solutions to issues such as unfinished and unannotated assemblies, private data sets, private annotations, etc. Our tools will give individual investigators or small groups with no computational support the power to utilize and interpret next generation sequencing data.

Any guess as to the funding agency? Yep....

The exciting life of a professor continues!

--titus

I just submitted a Mellon Award for Tech Collaboration nomination for the Python Buildhaus. What's that, you ask?

The Python Buildhaus is a project to systematically build, test and release Open Source Python packages on Windows, Mac OS X, and a wide array of other UNIX architectures and operating systems (see snakebite.org for list). In addition to providing machine access, software support, and process support, we hope to create a set of best practices and process documentation to help the community address cross-platform compatibility issues. We will also build tools to extend the impact of this effort beyond Michigan State by providing longer-lasting developer resources, e.g. tools to auto-build Python eggs and installers across multiple platforms.

This will be an open resource for the Python community.

See the Python Buildhaus and our proposal.

This is basically an attempt to use Snakebite to push specifically to help with the cross-platform distribution problem.

--titus

I'm writing some proposals to expand support for Python infrastructure (think cross-platform build and test farms a la Snakebite) and for the Mellon Foundation application, I'd like to find out how Python is being used in the humanities. I found NLTK, the Natural Language Toolkit; what else is big?

thanks, --titus

I'd like to invite you to attend the last of the Michigan State University CSE colloquia for the 2008-2009 academic year: jointly sponsored as an AT&T Visiting Lecturer by the MSU LCT, and the CSE department, Sam Ramji will speak about

Open Source at Microsoft: The Past, Present and Future

in CommArts room 147, Friday May 1, at 11:00am. I encourage you all to attend and to forward this on to others who might be interested! As you know, open source software is playing an increasingly big part in education, academia, science, and business, and so I expect this to be a very interesting talk.

Contact me at ctb@msu.edu for further information.

--

Abstract:

Since Microsoft established its Open Source Lab in Redmond more than five years ago, it has worked with many open source players to make Windows the best platform for all applications to run on. But this has not been without its challenges and there is a lot more work to be done on this front. This talk will cover the thinking behind Microsoft's current open source strategy and what this means for the software engineers of the future. It will also spotlight some innovative Open Source projects the company is supporting at universities across the world.

Biography:

Sam Ramji is the Senior Director of Platform Strategy leading Microsoft's platform strategy efforts across the company, including long-term strategic planning in the Windows Server and Tools organization. Sam's primary focus is to drive Microsoft's Linux and Open Source Strategy, working together with Microsoft technology development teams and open source communities to build interoperable solutions.

Prior to his current role at Microsoft, Sam was a Director of Emerging Business working on the Silicon Valley Campus where he managed relationships with Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sam led technical product strategy at BEA Systems, engineering teams building large-scale applications on Open Source software (at Ofoto.com) as well as hands-on development of client, client-server, and distributed applications on Unix, Windows, and Macintosh at prior companies.

Sam holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Cognitive Science from the University of California at San Diego, and is a member of the Institute for Generative Leadership.

Open source coding is like a not-so-demanding mistress: I work on it at night, surreptitiously, after my wife and daughter are asleep. twill and figleaf are like bastard children, who only get attention when I can spare it from my "real" family (my teaching, research or my actual family, depending ;)

Sigh.

--titus

Anyone out there used disco (http://discoproject.org/)? Comments, good/bad/neutral?

From the page:

Disco is an open-source implementation of the Map-Reduce framework for distributed computing. As the original framework, Disco supports parallel computations over large data sets on unreliable cluster of computers.

The Disco core is written in Erlang, a functional language that is designed for building robust fault-tolerant distributed applications. Users of Disco typically write jobs in Python, which makes it possible to express even complex algorithms or data processing tasks often only in tens of lines of code. This means that you can quickly write scripts to process massive amounts of data.

thanks!

--titus