viernes, 30 de abril de 2010

Fiuchar is nau

Es acojonante interactuar con el mundo. Unas veces ganas, otras no, pero interactuas. Y eso mola, no me jodas.

Lo que recientemente me sucede, y me doy cuenta, es que el futuro esta íntimamente relacionado con el presente, y aunque eso parezca una trivialidad, no siempre soy consciente de ello.

En la historia que no sale en los libros, la del día a día, la mía, y seguramente la tuya, uno mismo es el prota de su película, y si no esperas nada más de ella que ir pasandolo bien minuto a minuto, pues no importa mucho a donde te lleve el proximo capítulo. Carpe Diem.

Pero no hace falta tener previsiones a años vista para ver que tus pasos no son gratis. Cada movimiento es un turno, y eso ya no vuelve. Y la jugada que empiezas ahora, te condiciona tu siguiente turno. Y pasar no entra en las reglas del juego. Llamémos a este epsilon de tiempo, "el proximo turno".

Una entrevista de trabajo mal llevada, te cierra puertas a currar, a dejar el curro, o a cambiar de ciudad.

Un policía que casi te pilla, te podía haber jodido tu expediente, o tu carnet. Y tu estabas jugando en el juego. Un borracho que por la calle te pega un puñetazo porque ha ganado su equipo, te deja, a parte de en el suelo, te deja pensando en que cojones haces viviendo un día a día, que no te lleva a ningun lado, porque simplemente apuntas a media altura, apuntas a mañana. al proximo turno, pero solo con llegar ya te basta.

Un paso mal dado, te puede dejar cojo, y no poder irte de viaje, aunque ya hayas pagado tu billete. Pero esto no es como Dallas, donde te puedes inventar que la muerte de JR era un sueño. Los turnos pasan, y cada jugada es una opción de encarrilar, o cagarla.

Este próximo turno (futuro immediato) se crea a partir de esta gran bola de mierda que es el presente, y que va ladera abajo, llevandose por delante todo lo que pilla. Y es tan grande y gorda, que uno no la puede parar conscientemente. Digamos que es una version del S.XXI del concepto del "train of knowledge"(al final) y Quality que conocí en Pirsig, paralelismo del tren, pero remasterizada, actualizada, y con 7 segundos inéditos. Los del puñetazo.

DOCS or GTFO


Ok, you hate documenting. But it's part of the deal.

As you may know, there are tools that generate browseable documentation provided you document your code in a proper way.

Perl is no exception, and you can convert POD documentation to html, formatted plain text, LaTeX, etc...

To ensure you documented (at least, put the boilerplate) every non private function in your code, there's a module called Pod::Coverage that checks for undocumented functions, parsing your code, parsing your pod, and doing the match, and the diff.

Once that we're at it, we can bundle the check as a test for our application, and, in fact, there's Test::Pod::Coverage, that is exactly what we're looking for.

Ok, let's write a minimal module (BankAccount will do), using the right tools for each job.

module-starter --module=BankAccount --author="Raimon Grau" --email=raimonster@gmail.com --builder="Module::Install"


This will generate all the boilerplate and the directory scaffold needed, and it will include (at least if you have both packages installed).



This code will fail the pod coverage test, because the method withdraw is not documented.

Well, we have a new tool in our toolbox, that makes sure at least every method has its associated POD documentation. The module won't force you to document subs starting with underscore (thank god for DWIM). There's also other modules that build on this, like the one RJBS explains here.

lunes, 26 de abril de 2010

Iterator::Simple, as simple as it gets

We're all feeling spring is coming again. That's not new though, so you could have guessed that after winter, spring was about to come.. ¬¬

We could build a circular list to retrieve a list of consecutive seasons, but as I discovered
Iterator::Simple, Here follows a stupid example of its usage.



We can also wrap an iterator, "á la" stream (I'm reading the stream chapter in SICP, and nowadays, I can only think in streams :p ), delaying the evaluation of the wrapping until the given elements are needed using imap. We also have ifilter, igrep, and so.

Here's a code that wraps (or decorates, in python slang IIRC) our iterator modifying the string returned, and it limits the iterator to 6 seasons.

miércoles, 14 de abril de 2010

Versioning in squeak/pharo using Monticello

Lately I've been working on a simple website I'm doing in smalltalk. It's not a complex thing, but it's someway new being my first serious website I've done.

To build it I'm using pier and seaside. And it's mostly fantastic. But sometimes, all of the sudden, some unknown error occurs and my image freezes. And my last codes are lost. No way to recover it even using the recovery tool.

So I remembered something Mr. Ducasse said in the course he did in UPC. The idea is you could throw away your image every day, and start with a fresh new one, EVERY DAY.

One option is fileOuts and fileIns, and in fact, it's simple, reliable and it just works (tm), but you cannot store different versions, and if you did the manual filename juggling, the versions would not have any relationship between them.

Then, here comes monticello. A kind of apt-get + launchpad. It's a package browser and installer (no dependency tracking AFAIK), where repos can be lots of different places, from local directories, to squeaksource remotes, or ftp, or ....

The trick is opening a create a new package (+package button) with the name of the category you want to save. Then, it will appear in the left panel of monticello browser. After that, create a new repository (+Repository button) and add a directory where you want to save it. Then just press the save button.

When you open a new image and want to load the package, open monticello browser, open the repository (+Repository again), click it, and browse. There you'll be able to load the package, and once it's loaded, it will appear in the left panel of the main Monticello Browser.
In the second screenshot you see top left, the different repository types. on the right, the main Monticello screen with the two panels.  My advise is to play a bit with it, selecting and unselecting items to get the feeling of it.

Btw, there's a new project related to source maintaining and versioning called Metacello that seems to be the next iteration of monticello, or "monticello done right", adding full support for package managing, being aware of versions and so.  I'm just guessing as I'm a newbie in both projects and I just skimmed the docs, so please, correct me if I'm wrong.

lunes, 12 de abril de 2010

MP3 fail

Me compré un mp3 y ha ido conmigo a todas partes. Y con él comparto momentos en los que él pone la banda sonora a mis accions, y a las situaciones en las que me veo envuelto.

Es capaz de potenciar una situación, o apartarme del mundo. Un perfecto aliado. Hasta he ido a discotecas a escuchar mi mp3 (HAI TENERIFE). Y a pasear a las 5AM. Me ha hecho conocer gente, y ha dormido en casas ajenas, siempre como una extension mía, como un embajador.

Lo habrán escuchado unas 100 personas distintas.

Me lo compré el 12 de Abril de 2008, lo cargué de música, y no la cambié jamás. A medida que lo escuchaba más y más, me recordaba a cada una de estas 100 personas. Pues el 10 de abril de 2010 dejó de funcionar. Kaput. 2 años menos 2 dias. Con las mismas 2 Gigas.

La pregunta es: Debo llenar mi nuevo mp3 con la misma música?

Portishead, Fat Boy Slim, Michel Camilo, Pearl Jam, Mama ladilla, Janis Joplin, Rare Earth, Ten years after, Zuco 103.

Ya veremos si os vuelvo a ver en mi bolsillo...o os cambio por Mika ;).

Si cambio, una que cae seguro va a ser move to the city.

Parece un cutre-post (y seguramente lo es), pero mi compi de viajes se merece una mencion. ¿no?

jueves, 1 de abril de 2010

First step to Zurich

Many of you know that I've been skimming job-hunting sites. I'm not to change unless I find a cool job.

Well, after talking to a good friend and wise advisor, he told me to go hunting myself. Real good jobs have to be seeked in a smart way.

So I did, and I send a few CVs to cool companies where I would really love to work. And one of those, is (yeah, you guessed) Big Bro^WGoogle.

The surprising thing is that they answered me, and told me They'll contact me further, explaining the process of the interviews and so. I don't know if I'll be able to talk further about it, so...

I'm extremely excited, but today, being the April 1st, I thought for a moment, it could be an April Fools' Day joke. I hope not...but you never know... Google acts in mysterious ways :)


A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu