On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 15:03:34 -0400, Joel wrote:

> I don't know what you would expect to do with it.

When I started doing Linux/Unix programming (late 1990s), it was back-end
web stuff with Perl. Then I needed to do something with a GUI that a local
user could run. I initially wrote it with Tcl/Tk.

Then I discovered Python. I redid the app with that, using GTK as the GUI
toolkit. It worked so much better, I never found another use for Tcl after
that.

These days, Python is my language of choice for bread-and-butter back-end
stuff. It has a vast number of addon libraries for interfacing to just
about any kind of functionality you might want. And I have done my bit to
add to those libraries.

On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 17:32:14 -0400, Joel wrote:

> I can't imagine I'd need anything beyond C.

Python lets you get things done more quickly.

Example: a client needed to extract sensor data from MPEG-4 movies
recorded with GoPro cameras. I wrote a Python script which spawned the
“ffprobe” command (part of the FFmpeg suite) to dump out the stream
listing in JSON format, which was easy enough to parse. Then, having
identified the stream containing the instrumentation data, another ffprobe
call gave me the locations in the file (and the movie timestamps) for the
individual packets in that stream.

The actual packets were easy enough to decode from the GoPro docs (with
some adjustments for the inevitable discrepancies between what they say
and what they do), using the struct module
<https://docs.python.org/3/library/struct.html> from the standard Python
library to extract the bits.

Net result: a bit over 700 lines of Python code needed.

On Sat, 8 Jun 2024 21:48:32 -0000 (UTC), vallor wrote:

> My go-to language has always been perl ...

I did Perl for some years, but always felt that there were things
potentially going on that I could never quite understand.

When I tried Python for the first time, that feeling went away. It was
always clear to me what the code was doing, and why--no mysterious magic,
no surprises.

On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 19:42:16 -0400, Joel wrote:

> ... everything's already been coded, by someone else.

Lots of things that haven’t been done yet. I published code for two, maybe
three, new things that a) I thought were significant, and b) hadn’t been
done (properly) by anyone else just last month alone.

DFS ( to DetroitsFinest ): If you were African you'd get the "Nosebone Award".
zZombie(%): who cares. DFS: You a jigaboo, boy ?

His ancestors built British Columbia's 1st nation;
now they're too fat/drunk to move, I imagine.

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 01:01:44 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> Then I discovered Python. I redid the app with that, using GTK as the
> GUI toolkit. It worked so much better, I never found another use for Tcl
> after that.

I does amaze me Tkinter is still alive and well. It is usable enough but
like Motif isn't going to pass for a modern widget set.

On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 19:42:16 -0400, Joel wrote:

> What purpose does coding that serve? I can code, I choose not to
> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.

Excellent! I'm one of the someone else's that's made a living doing what
someone else wouldn't/couldn't do.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

>> ... I just wonder what it would take to start from nothing.
>
>One way to find out: <https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/>.

I just wouldn't benefit from that, I think. A distro is all it takes.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Jun 8, 2024 at 7:42:16 PM EDT, "Joel" <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:

> DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:
>
>>> I can't imagine I'd need anything beyond C.
>>
>> I hope you're not gonna pull a Feeb and claim you're a C guru that can
>> 'move the Earth', but refuse to show ANY decent code, then make lame
>> excuses like "I have other fish to fry".
>>
>>
>> 1) write your own C to sort these 3 names (by last then first):
>>
>> William Thomas
>> Zachary Jones
>> Jim Thomas
>>
>>
>> 2) write your own C to count the words in:
>>
>> "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."
>>
>>
>> 3) write your own C to calc the mean, median and mode of:
>>
>> 1,2,3,4,5,5,6,7,8,9
>>
>>
>>
>> Why is it I have a VERY strong feeling you and Feeb and C are about to
>> be pwned by python?
>
>
> What purpose does coding that serve? I can code, I choose not to
> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.

What an extremely naive thing to say.

Granted, all of the alleged "coding challenges" that Feeb presents here HAVE
already been coded. But that's what happens when you think that "All
programming is about solving trivial math problems".

I code solutions for client issues every day. Mostly in Oracle SQL, but also
in our own scripting languages. Trust me, these solutions have not "already
been coded". It is all custom code. They are unique to the client's data and
what they want to accomplish.

In the real world, very few problems have "already been coded". Which is why
people who proclaim that "AI" is going to make programmers "obsolete" have no
GD clue what they are talking about.

Tyrone <none@none.none> wrote:
>On Jun 8, 2024 at 7:42:16?PM EDT, "Joel" <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:
>> DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Why is it I have a VERY strong feeling you and Feeb and C are about to
>>> be pwned by python?
>>
>> What purpose does coding that serve? I can code, I choose not to
>> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.
>
>What an extremely naive thing to say.
>
>Granted, all of the alleged "coding challenges" that Feeb presents here HAVE
>already been coded. But that's what happens when you think that "All
>programming is about solving trivial math problems".
>
>I code solutions for client issues every day. Mostly in Oracle SQL, but also
>in our own scripting languages. Trust me, these solutions have not "already
>been coded". It is all custom code. They are unique to the client's data and
>what they want to accomplish.
>
>In the real world, very few problems have "already been coded". Which is why
>people who proclaim that "AI" is going to make programmers "obsolete" have no
>GD clue what they are talking about.

My work is on X/Twitter, not software development. I use my computer
as a sort of workstation, but not to tinker and spend time on coding.
It's about gathering and disseminating information.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On 6/8/2024 7:42 PM, Joel wrote:
> DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:
>
>>> I can't imagine I'd need anything beyond C.

It's true that you generally don't NEED anything beyond C, but a
language like Python will save you immense time, depending on the problem.

>> I hope you're not gonna pull a Feeb and claim you're a C guru that can
>> 'move the Earth', but refuse to show ANY decent code, then make lame
>> excuses like "I have other fish to fry".
>>
>>
>> 1) write your own C to sort these 3 names (by last then first):
>>
>> William Thomas
>> Zachary Jones
>> Jim Thomas

n1 = ['William Thomas','Zachary Jones','Jim Thomas']
n2 = []
for n in n1:
n2.append((n.split()[0],n.split()[1]))
for n in sorted(n2,key=lambda x: x[1] + x[0]):
print(n[0] + ' ' + n[1])

6 lines of code

>> 2) write your own C to count the words in:
>>
>> "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."

s = "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."
print(len(s.split()))

2 LOC

>> 3) write your own C to calc the mean, median and mode of:
>>
>> 1,2,3,4,5,5,6,7,8,9

import statistics
n = [1,2,5,4,3,6,7,5,8,9]
m = sorted(n,reverse=True)
print('Mean =', str(sum(n)/len(n)))
print('Median =', (m[4]+m[5])/2)
print('Mode =', str(statistics.mode(n)))

6 LOC

(note I changed the order of the numbers so the mean/median/mode values
- all 5 - weren't so visually predictable. And a more general routine
that doesn't use the stats module and handles any length number set is
maybe 12 lines of code)

>> Why is it I have a VERY strong feeling you and Feeb and C are about to
>> be pwned by python?
>
>
> What purpose does coding that serve?

That you can at least minimally support your boasting.

> I can code, I choose not to

Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
accomplish those things. You're way rusty!

> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.

wtf? You got high yesterday. Why did you get high again today?

Joel, Feeb and C: severely pwned by Python

On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 22:43:44 -0400, Joel wrote:

> My work is on X/Twitter, not software development. I use my computer as
> a sort of workstation, but not to tinker and spend time on coding.
> It's about gathering and disseminating information.

https://developer.x.com/en/docs/twitter-api/tools-and-libraries/v2

You could use tweepy or one of the other Python modules to automate your
gathering an disseminating.

DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:

>>> Why is it I have a VERY strong feeling you and Feeb and C are about to
>>> be pwned by python?
>>
>> What purpose does coding that serve?
>
>That you can at least minimally support your boasting.

I wrote a mIRC script, years ago, to do integer division, when the
internal calculation functions didn't do what I needed. I don't need
to be lectured about some coding skillz dicksizing shit.

>> I can code, I choose not to
>
>Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
>accomplish those things. You're way rusty!

It would come back to me in mere moments.

>> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.
>
>wtf? You got high yesterday. Why did you get high again today?

I'm serious, I never have a problem finding software to download that
I would need to use.

>Joel, Feeb and C: severely pwned by Python

Not.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

>> My work is on X/Twitter, not software development. I use my computer as
>> a sort of workstation, but not to tinker and spend time on coding.
>> It's about gathering and disseminating information.
>
>https://developer.x.com/en/docs/twitter-api/tools-and-libraries/v2
>
>You could use tweepy or one of the other Python modules to automate your
>gathering an disseminating.

If they have all this available, why is there no desktop app for
Twitter., at least officially? I've been using it through a browser,
all this time?

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

rbowman wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 19:42:16 -0400, Joel wrote:
>
>> What purpose does coding that serve? I can code, I choose not to
>> because everything's already been coded, by someone else.
>
> Excellent! I'm one of the someone else's that's made a living doing what
> someone else wouldn't/couldn't do.

Even Stroustrop has a chapter in his C++ book about "Avoiding Programming".

--
It is so very hard to be an
on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you
grown-up.

On Sun, 09 Jun 2024 04:24:21 -0400, Joel wrote:

>>Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
>>accomplish those things. You're way rusty!
>
>
> It would come back to me in mere moments.

You're better than most programmers I know then. After being away from a
language for a while it's usually 'Duh, how do I start?' The worst case is
you've been using a somewhat similar language in the meantime.

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

>>>Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
>>>accomplish those things. You're way rusty!
>>
>> It would come back to me in mere moments.
>
>You're better than most programmers I know then. After being away from a
>language for a while it's usually 'Duh, how do I start?' The worst case is
>you've been using a somewhat similar language in the meantime.

I majored in comp sci, I have used a number of languages, even
multiple platforms of assembly, just not in a long time. I've done
amazing things with mIRC script's language. It's not a hard thing for
me to pick up the process of coding, it *is* hard to think of an
original idea for something to code, though.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Sun, 09 Jun 2024 04:27:36 -0400, Joel wrote:

> If they have all this available, why is there no desktop app for
> Twitter., at least officially? I've been using it through a browser,
> all this time?

https://www.tecmint.com/best-linux-twitter-clients/

How many did you want? Or you can create your own:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-twitter-
app-with-python

Or, if you're really using Windows

https://www.malavida.com/en/soft/twitter/
https://apps.microsoft.com/en-us/detail/9wzdncrfj140?
launch=true&mode=full&ocid=bingwebsearch

For something that is important to you, you haven't done a couple of
minutes of research?

For the record, you can certainly do OAuth2 in C. It's a pain in the ass.

Joel wrote:
> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
>>>> accomplish those things. You're way rusty!
>>>
>>> It would come back to me in mere moments.
>>
>> You're better than most programmers I know then. After being away from a
>> language for a while it's usually 'Duh, how do I start?' The worst case is
>> you've been using a somewhat similar language in the meantime.
>
>
> I majored in comp sci, I have used a number of languages, even
> multiple platforms of assembly, just not in a long time. I've done
> amazing things with mIRC script's language. It's not a hard thing for
> me to pick up the process of coding, it *is* hard to think of an
> original idea for something to code, though.
>
you majored in everything and ,
taught it all to the instructors

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

>> If they have all this available, why is there no desktop app for
>> Twitter., at least officially? I've been using it through a browser,
>> all this time?
>
>https://www.tecmint.com/best-linux-twitter-clients/
>
>How many did you want? Or you can create your own:
>
>https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-twitter-
>app-with-python

This morning, when I read your previous reply, I Googled and found
something about making a Web app for it under Linux, which I was using
before I left for church. I'll look at your link above now.

>Or, if you're really using Windows

Noooo! Just a Winblows NNTP client under Wine.

>https://www.malavida.com/en/soft/twitter/
>https://apps.microsoft.com/en-us/detail/9wzdncrfj140?
>launch=true&mode=full&ocid=bingwebsearch
>
>For something that is important to you, you haven't done a couple of
>minutes of research?

No one ever told me this existed.

>For the record, you can certainly do OAuth2 in C. It's a pain in the ass.

I guess it's conceivable I could utilize X's info to make something, I
dunno if there would be a need to or not. I'll look at your link.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On 6/9/2024 1:56 PM, Joel wrote:
> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
>>>> accomplish those things. You're way rusty!
>>>
>>> It would come back to me in mere moments.
>>
>> You're better than most programmers I know then. After being away from a
>> language for a while it's usually 'Duh, how do I start?' The worst case is
>> you've been using a somewhat similar language in the meantime.
>
>
> I majored in comp sci, I have used a number of languages, even
> multiple platforms of assembly, just not in a long time. I've done
> amazing things with mIRC script's language. It's not a hard thing for
> me to pick up the process of coding, it *is* hard to think of an
> original idea for something to code, though.

You just need to decide what interests you that a computer program would
help you accomplish.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mIRC/comments/vril37/what_are_some_useful_mirc_scripts_in_2022/

https://www.dataquest.io/blog/python-projects-for-beginners/

https://projecteuler.net/

https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code

One of the very first python programs I wrote - a little over 8 years
ago! - was to connect a pyodbc driver to an Access database and
summarize the db file.

2,099,101 rows
114 tables (max row = 600288)
971 columns
text: 503
boolean: 4
numeric: 351
date-time: 108
binary: 5
309 indexes (25 foreign keys)
333,549,568 bytes on disk
Time: 0.19 seconds

Later, abusing cola 'advocates' by tossing their idiocy back in their
faces spurred me to use python to download Usenet posts and put them
into a relational database, from which I can extract drooling such as
this from Feeb in Oct 2017:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beginning/top of post
"When you say standardization, you of course mean a standardized GUI
toolkit, and that is what Microshit has and that is what, admittedly
makes Microshit a better choice than GNU/Linux."

End of same post:
".. the GUI interface, and especially a STANDARD GUI, severely limits
the capabilities of any computing machine. That is why GNU/Linux. with
its non-standardized assortments of toolkits and libraries is the
superior choice."

<ddb53c30-8078-49b5-9462-e602ae6f4f76@googlegroups.com>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:
>On 6/9/2024 1:56 PM, Joel wrote:
>> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>> Not buying it, pal. I don't believe you can still write C code to
>>>>> accomplish those things. You're way rusty!
>>>>
>>>> It would come back to me in mere moments.
>>>
>>> You're better than most programmers I know then. After being away from a
>>> language for a while it's usually 'Duh, how do I start?' The worst case is
>>> you've been using a somewhat similar language in the meantime.
>>
>> I majored in comp sci, I have used a number of languages, even
>> multiple platforms of assembly, just not in a long time. I've done
>> amazing things with mIRC script's language. It's not a hard thing for
>> me to pick up the process of coding, it *is* hard to think of an
>> original idea for something to code, though.
>
>You just need to decide what interests you that a computer program would
>help you accomplish.

Writing a Linux X/Twitter client would be it, but the Web app is
working well, already.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Sun, 09 Jun 2024 13:56:46 -0400, Joel wrote:

> I majored in comp sci, I have used a number of languages, even multiple
> platforms of assembly, just not in a long time. I've done amazing
> things with mIRC script's language. It's not a hard thing for me to
> pick up the process of coding, it *is* hard to think of an original idea
> for something to code, though.

I'll admit coming up with a worthwhile project is difficult. In theory I
could automate my home including a wifi enabled weather station in the
yard and a kibble dispenser to feed the cat when she shows up doing facial
recognition to make sure it's a black and white cat and not a black and
white skunk. Of course this would all be logged into PostgreSQL.
Apparently I could scrape my fitbit data and do a regression analysis of
heart rate, external ambient temperature, hours of daylight, and phase of
the moon.

In practice, I can go out on the deck. If I get wet it's raining. If my
nose hairs freeze, it's cold. If the cat is around I feed her.

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 16:30:28 -0400, DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote in
<666610e0$0$2422127$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com>:

> Later, abusing cola 'advocates' by tossing their idiocy back in their
> faces spurred me to use python to download Usenet posts and put them
> into a relational database, from which I can extract drooling such as
> this from Feeb in Oct 2017:
>
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Beginning/top of post "When you say standardization, you of course mean
> a standardized GUI toolkit, and that is what Microshit has and that is
> what, admittedly makes Microshit a better choice than GNU/Linux."
>
>
> End of same post:
> ".. the GUI interface, and especially a STANDARD GUI, severely limits
> the capabilities of any computing machine. That is why GNU/Linux. with
> its non-standardized assortments of toolkits and libraries is the
> superior choice."
>
> <ddb53c30-8078-49b5-9462-e602ae6f4f76@googlegroups.com>
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I looked it up, and didn't surprise me who brain-farted his way
through that post.

But regarding that matter, back when I used Windows, I showed
a screenshot of my desktop, where every application had its own
ideas about what it wanted to look like. So Windows ain't "all that".

On my Linux desktop, the only apps with their own oddities are
those without title bars, such as Steam, obs-studio, and
the EDO game launcher. Maybe Blender too. So the idea
that Linux desktops are jungles of mis-matched interfaces
are somewhat exaggerated.

--
-v

On Sun, 09 Jun 2024 14:20:37 -0400, Joel wrote:

> No one ever told me this existed.

There is this thing called the internet... Unfortunately I go down way to
many rabbit holes.

https://leanpub.com/insidethepythonvirtualmachine/read

How the Python byte code works is fascinating but doesn't exactly further
the course of humanity. Some of the places I wind up are even further from
the beaten path. Much hasn't changed since i was 5 and armed with a
screwdriver would disassemble anything I got my sticky paws on.

I've been watching the Monk TV series and one of the punchlines is 'It's a
blessing and a curse.'