I’ve hesitated to post because I’m trying to move this blog to a different location (and name), but this is good stuff: today Apple announced Boot Camp, which lets you install Windows XP on your Intel-based Mac (and boot both OS X and Windows). Personally, I’d never use such a feature because I don’t need or want Windows ever again, but I’m sure there are plenty of people out there to whom this’ll be a very nice feature. Go Apple! 
(I hope.) So, my Powerbook died yesterday. Luckily I can still boot it in target disk mode and get all the data off, but it looks like it’s going to be out of the game. (Once I finish backing up I’ll run the hardware diagnostic test and see what’s up.) At least there are Macs on campus that I can use, because otherwise I think I’d go crazy.
On a side note, I don’t think I really like the name “Digital Bridge” anymore. All those “idges” rather bother me. So I’ll be renaming the site and redesigning the look. And hopefully writing better posts on a more frequent basis. (Considering that the readership is still zero, I’m not doing so well on that front. )
The more I read about Python, the more I’m liking it. (See Eric S. Raymond’s Why Python?, for example.) I suppose that if I upgraded to Tiger, the binding problem I had would go away. So, if that does indeed happen, I suspect I’ll be doing most of my Mac development in Python rather than Objective-C.
Technorati Tags: Python, Mac, Objective-C
I’m supposed to be in bed (early meeting tomorrow morning) but I figured I’d quickly mention this. I downloaded and installed PyObjC today and tried to get the sample program (from Apple’s website) working, and I was so close, but for some reason my Xcode (1.5, on OS X 10.3.9) wouldn’t show the Averager in the binding tab of the info dialog. I’m pretty sure I followed the instructions correctly, and I even watched the Quicktime movie to double-check that I was doing it right, but with no luck. Oh, and I downloaded the project from their site and opened it and the info dialog said it was hooked to Averager (for “value”) but when I expanded the value thingie, it went away and I was left with just “System Defaults” and the other one, which I can’t remember at the moment. Anyway, I’m not sure what the source of the problem is here, but I may just go back to Objective-C for now…
Technorati Tags: Python, PyObjC, Cocoa, Objective-C, Xcode
In my linguistics classes, we’re doing stuff with text processing/analysis software (like WordCruncher) that’s Windows-only, and it’s a shame. How hard would it be to write a text analysis engine in Perl or Python and a frontend in PyObjC? It can’t be that hard… Perhaps I’ll use that as my learning program for Python — start small and build up. So, the next question then is what text analysis software ought to do. There’s got to be a ton of different ways to look at a text computationally — wordprint analyses, statistics of various types, etc. The engine would also have to support tagging the text, so you could say “This word is a verb, 3rd person singular present active indicative” or “This is a conjunction” or whatever. I really only have experience with WordCruncher, but in my research class we looked at some Oxford tools a month or two ago which seemed to be the same sort of thing.
But in all reality, to make this project worth my time (and to keep my interest), it has to be something I care about. Adding statistics on end won’t cut it. So, what does it need to do to be useful? For me, it’d be nice to make a list of the top x (50 or 100 or 1000 or whatnot) words in a text. Foreign language texts are important to me as well, and I can see this tool (let’s call it Wordsmith for now) being of some use in preparing texts for Riverglen Press “publication.” In fact, that’s a good way to ensure that it will be useful, to me at least — focus it on helping with production for Riverglen Press. Excellent…
Technorati Tags: text processing, Mac, WordCruncher, Perl, Python, PyObjC
At the library today I browsed through the Python section (QA 76.73 .P98 or so, if you care to know ) and picked up O’Reilly’s Learning Python. Spent the last hour going through the first chapter and a half. Good stuff. It’s surprisingly easy to learn, and gosh it’s fun! (I think my delight stems from 1) the fact that I haven’t really learned any substantially new languages in a while and 2) it’s interpreted, so results come immediately, and 3) it’s a cool language.) This language-learning thing is addicting. I can’t wait to learn Ruby and Lisp/Scheme and more Perl… Anyway, the main thing is to start coding real things in it, so I’ll have to come up with some small mini-programs that’ll help me get my bearings. And then it’ll be time to learn PyObjC and see if it’s feasible for writing Beyond. I think it is — Apple’s website seems to indicate that you can do anything you need to with it — and it’ll be soooooo nice not to have to take care of memory management.
And yes, TextMate is still slow. Backspacing, especially. Hmm. If I can’t figure out a way to fix it, it’ll be bye-bye TextMate and hello again to vim. (TextWrangler is okay but the interface is kind of clunky.)
Technorati Tags: Python, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Perl, TextMate, vim, TextWrangler
I’ve been using both TextWrangler and vi for the last while, but all these Rails screencasts have got me interested in TextMate. I downloaded the trial version and it looks pretty cool, but I’ll have to do some real work with it before I decide. It’s really quite nice that it opens a new file when you switch back to it (if you don’t have a file open). However, it doesn’t seem to be as responsive when I’m typing fast. I’m not sure why. (By “fast” I mean 120-140wpm.) When editing plaintext like this, the autocompletion of parentheses and quotes without getting in the way is a very nice thing. I can see this one growing on me… Anyway, I’ll write more about it later.
Technorati Tags: TextMate, TextWrangler, vi, Rails
In Digital Bridge a while back, I said something about Penny Pincher, the software I want (er, need) to write to help me save my money. So this morning I came up with a logo (the name is now just Penny, by the way) and it’ll be my first Cocoa project. Here’s the logo:
I tried cleaning out my fonts folder (with FontExplorer X) and that didn’t help at all. Why aren’t the fonts showing up in the Adobe apps?!? I checked Illustrator CS and the fonts do show up and I can use them just fine. So what changed in CS2? Argh. I have no idea how to fix this…
Go iTunes!
Technorati Tags: iTunes
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