pieceofpy.com

I had built my Python interpreter from source because I wanted a 64bit compile to use with boost-python based generic algorithm. So for the last couple months I have not had readline support, which means no arrow support in the console. Also means neat shortcut’s like _ would work for assigning the last result of an expression.

I finally got annoyed enough today to fix it. After a ton of failed attempts and trying to rebuild it with readline support. I found a post in the Ruby world where someone has having similar issues. Their solution was rlwrap. Having homebrew installed, I figured I’d give that a try.


wwitzel:~ brew install rlwrap
wwitzel:~ alias python='rlwrap python'


And presto, everything functioned as it should. I added the alias to my .bash_profile and made this blog post for when I forget about this in the future. Hope this helps someone else who might be wrestling with the same issue.

I get made fun of on a daily basis for this but I am addicted to GUI Green-Bar testing. When I say that I literally mean a simple little Green/Red progress bar that shows me my pass/fail tests. I am addicted to it. I need it. Eclipse C++ and CUTE had spoiled me and now I desire the same thing for Python. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t practice “metrics driven development“, but for me personally, it is a motivator, an easy and clearly defined goal in my test driven approach, make that bar go full green.

I’ve spent the last few hours on Google and misc blogs looking for GUI Green bar testing for modern Python and have been unsuccessful in finding anything. So I ask anyone who happens to read this blog if you know of any plugins for any IDEs or text editors that support this for Python.

In the mean time I started my first Eclipse plugin project ever in hopes I can hack my through enough Java and pull enough from PyDev extension that I can make a simple green bar for Eclipse that parses nosetests output or something.

I’ve enabled Gravatar for comments, if you don’t know what that is, you can find out all you need to know at http://gravatar.com

I have also setup a github account for all the source code from this blog. It is pretty easy to use and should a multi-contributor project stem from this blog, we’ll have a place for it. Find out more at http://github.com or browse the repo at:

http://github.com/wwitzel3/pieceofpy/tree/master

UPDATED
I took down the github repo and setup a mercurial repo with trac on top of it.
http://trac.pieceopfy.com/pieceofpy

See Blog themes and SCM for more details.

e is a text editor for Windows based off the popular Mac TextMate editor. I’ve started using it over Eclipse. It isn’t a full on IDE, but with the use of Bundles and the ability to easily script things out in e, I find myself more productive using e vs. Eclipse.

The price tag is $40. Well worth it. Get yourself an integrated source control program like TortoiseSVN, use the open directory as project feature of e and you’ll be off to the races.  The !TextMate bundles and scriptlets out there work in e without modification, another nice bonus. Now, granted you do lose out on ticket integration and some other high level things Eclipse offers as plugins, but overall, I’m preferring e and using it as my primary editor for development now.

Another good thing, given my long term plans as always have been to get myself a Mac, I’ll feel comfortable with !TextMate right away.

The amount of package sites and updating I had to do to get Eclipse 3.4 setup the way I wanted wasn’t too bad, I just hope I don’t have to do that again any time soon. So in an effort to potentially ease any future installation and configuration of Eclipse I have composed the list of Eclipse Update URLs right here.

• Java SVN Library
• Eclipse SVN integration
• PyDev (Python perspective in Eclipse)
• Mylyn (very nice task integration)
• Mylyn Trac connector
• Aptana (nice syntax and JS/CSS editor)