the Forty-Second Parallel

Much better - finally got around to finishing up some much needed maintenance on this site. The colophon actually exists now ;-) I also added a new section under the guise of projects.

Saw Robert Scoble's recent "why you shouldn't buy an iPod and support WMA instead" argument and came to the same conclusion as Gizmodo - instead of supporting WMA over AAC or vice versa, I think I'll stick to generic MP3s. They Just Work(TM) - regardless of which digital music player you have. And I don't think MP3s are going anywhere anytime soon.

Minor revision/redesign in progress - while you watch.

It's funny - how if you read the documentation carefully, things make a lot more sense. I think I've tried almost every GUI framework for Python that I could find - wax, wxGlade, wxPython, PyObjC, etc.

wxPython was first; but I got frustrated quickly cause it didn't work the way I expected (more about that in a minute). Then moved successively from one framework to another. Most were either too buggy, undocumented or obtuse to be really useful. I had the most luck out of the box with PyObjC - but that meant grepping Cocoa and Objective-C syntax and then translating that into Python. The result was pretty - but unfortunately, the result was also Mac only.

So, I bit the bullet and dragged myself back to wxPython land ... and read the documentation. Amazingly enough, things worked after that. As advertised. Out of the box. It's a miracle!! ;-) Together with bundlebuilder and py2exe, I can create slick, native GUI interfaces using Python that can be distributed and run on Windows, Mac or Linux.

The distributable packages are a little big because of the overhead of bundling the Python runtine along with the wxPython framework. But, that's the price you pay for portability. And you have true, honest to goodness WORA (write once, run anywhere). The only downside being the prices of admission - reading the documentation. Amazing ...

Little article up at perl.com pondering the state of Perl. The author basically concludes that people still use Perl, so things are grand - no worries in Perlland.

Personally, though, I think that Perl's heyday has come and gone. Sure Perl is still heavily used in system administration and cgi scripts, etc. But there are so many other tools (Python and PHP are the first that come to mind) that are arguably better suited to today's environments. And one time Perlland residents are defecting left and right to greener pastures (browse through the Python and PHP newsgroups).

Maybe Perl 6 and Parrot will surprise us all ... but I kinda doubt it.

Been experimenting with GUI options for Python. And none have been terribly satisfying.

Started out with wxPython. Way more complicated than it should be. And not very intuitive to write or debug.

Moved on to higher levels of abstraction - PythonCard and Wax, both of which are layered on top of wxPython in attempts to make up for wxPython's problems.

PythonCard seems decent enough. Even has a suitable GUI RAD tool (think minimal Visual Studio). But no matter what I did, I couldn't get events to fire ... so, I moved on to Wax. Wax is more like a straightforward version of wxPython - except I couldn't get controls to position right. Grrr ...

So, for now, I think I'll stick to the browser as GUI. Oh well.

Alright, now that it's been a few days since the MacWorld Keynote, I'll through my reactions into the collective blogosphere (you know, for posterity).

For the most part, only two things from this year's MW keynote warrant comment - GarageBand and the iPod mini.

I wish GarageBand had existed when I was in high school and college. I remember fudging with dinky four track recorders - recording; mixing down; recording again; mixing down to make more room; etc. Ugh. GarageBand just flat out rocks (or at least looks like it will).

The iPod mini, on the other hand, doesn't rock - it's defenders keep saying that it's not about price; size matters; etc. Hmm ... sorry, I don't buy that. Price matters. I think, for the majority of people, $249 is still a little steep for a portable music player. Besides, if you're ready to pay $249 for an iPod mini, you're probably willing to plunk down $50 more for a 15 gig iPod.

Apple is treading on thin ice here - they're kings of the hill until someone (perhaps Sony?) finally gets their act together and releases an iPod mini type device priced in the $150 - 200 range with a decent user interface. When that happens - the iPod's in trouble.