Arc v' May 08, 2003

It took me a while to realize that I never restored the old galleries on the euc.cx site. New hypr-minimal galleries are now up. Random designs and photographs from recent (but not terribly recent) years.

In the context that "one should read and analyze source code written by great programmers to become a better programmer," Jarno Virtanen asks "what would you recommend as a sort of source code literature to study?"

It's a good question. I don't know anything about truely great software, but source code that's been particularly inspiring to me lately in the Python realm has been:

• Docutils - the document processing framework for reStructuredText.
• APE - An adaptable persistence system that plugs into Zope/ZODB to not only offer good object-relational mapping, but also object-file (ie - an editable, understandable file) mapping, and the possibilities for anything else.
• Zope 3 - Zope 2 is some of the worst Python code to take good examples from (a little bit too much cleverness, and also strange namespace population games). Zope 3, on the other hand, maintains well structured packages and modules, and backs away from the package/module/class name collision (ie - no "is it 'DateTime.DateTime.DateTime'? or 'DateTime.DateTime' that I should import?). While you can now end up with long full names like zope.app.browser.form.editform.EditView, in Zope 3 you can easily trace that down to the class 'EditView'.

And while I haven't looked at the source code of Twisted, its API documentation looks as if it's all in this style as well. I count all of the above as good Python style. Many of the newer additions to the Python standard library (particularly large subsystems like the new email package and distutils) seem to follow these guidelines as well. It's funny, however, to see some newer Zope 2 products claim "follows Zope 3 conventions." These conventions have always been there, Zope 2 just seemed not to promote them.

I also found myself being particularly impressed with the C source code for Ruby. I found it much easier to read than most of the C source for Python (at least, based on the few glimpses I've put into each).

Taken in a rush on an early season snowfall with my beloved LC-A (last photo is a late season picture):

I haven't even taken the time to read it yet, but I'm watching this weblog (I hate the term 'blog') purely for it's beautiful name: Whiskey Bar. Mmmm... That reminds me - it's time to get a new bottle of scotch for the home.

Curiously enough, when TAPPED referred to it, they spelled it the scotch way - whisky.

This is especially prescient as there are a slew of potential new EUCCI tracks slated for a limited run CD that I'm thinking titling around the them Whisk(e)y Valentines.

As for the word 'blog'. That sounds like the sounds I was making friday night after waaay too much whisky. A night that involved a foosball game that left all players with bruises...