Notes on codes, projects and everything
-
Protobuf and dask
While JSON is a fine data-interchange format, however it does have some limitations. It is well-known for its simplicity, that even a non-programmer can easily compose a JSON file
(but humanity will surprise you IRL). Therefore, it is found almost everywhere, from numerous web APIs, to geospatial data (GeoJSON), and even semantic web (RDF/JSON). -
The Little Pythoner, Part 3
Previously, I started practising recursions by implementing a type check on lat (list of atoms), and
ismember(whether an atom is a member of a given lat). Then in the third chapter, named “Cons the Magnificent”, more list manipulation methods are being introduced. -
Generating grids in javascript
Recently I find some of my pet projects share a common pattern, they all are based on some kind of grids. So I find myself writing similar piece of code over and over again. While re-inventing wheels is quite fun, especially when you learn new way of getting things done with every iteration, it is actually quite tedious after a while.
-
The Little Pythoner, Part 2
In the last part, I implemented a couple of primitive functions so that they can be applied in the following chapters. The second chapter of the book, is titled “Do it again, and again, and again…”. The title already hints that readers will deal with repetitions throughout the chapter.
-
The Little Pythoner, Part I
I saw this article from alistapart, which is about Javascript’s prototypal object orientation. So the article mentioned Douglas Crawford, and I was immediately reminded about my struggle in understanding the language itself. Back then I used to also refer to his site for a lot of notes in Javascript. So I went back to have a quick read, and found this article that discusses the similarity between Javascript and Lisp.
-
Re-implementing a rule engine in Javascript (Introducing Ruler)
Sometimes, letting a piece of code evolving by itself without much planning does not usually end well. However I was quite pleased with a by-product of it and I am currently formalizing it. So the by-product is some sort of DSL for a rule engine that I implemented to process records. It started as some lambda functions in Python but eventually becomes something else.
-
Oh NO! My print output is chopped!
So my cheat with dask worked fine and dandy, until I started inspecting the output (which was to be used as an input for another script). While the script seemed to work fine, however when I started to parse each line I was hit with some funny syntax errors. After some quick inspection I found some of the lines was not printed completely.
-
Processing JSON with dask.bag
Often times, I am dealing with JSONL files, though panda’s DataFrame is great (and blaze to certain extend), however it is offering too much for the job. Most of the received data is in the form of structured text and I do all sorts of work with them. For example checking for consistency, doing replace based on values of other columns, stripping whitespace etc.
-
Estimating the value of pi with a line of Python
I came across a video on Youtube on Pi day. Coincidently it was about estimating the value of Pi produced by Matt Parker aka standupmaths. While I am not quite interested in knowing the best way to estimate Pi, I am quite interested in the algorithm he showed in the video however. Specifically, I am interested to find out how easy it is to implement in Python.
-
Further Hack on the Multi-Dimensional Approximate Neighbour Search
Traversing a tree structure often involves writing a recursive function. However, Python isn’t the best language for this purpose. Therefore I started flattening the tree into a key-value dictonary structure. Logically it is still a tree, but it is physically stored as a dictionary. Therefore it is now easier to write a simple loop to traverse it.
Random Posts
-
Creating a new daemon script for Meego 1.2 Harmattan
Call me a cheapskate, as I still have not subscribe to a mobile data plan after purchasing my second smartphone, namely Nokia N9. There’s this ‘allow background connections’ option but it doesn’t care whether the connected network is a WLAN network or mobile data network. After finding out that Nokia has no interest in creating another separate option so that each type of network has their respective ‘allow background connections’ switch, I decided to make one for my own.
-
Quick Hack: Terminal Appearing from Right
It is useful to have the terminal around whenever I code. However, while real screen estate is finite, having a terminal further limiting the amount of information that can be displayed at the same time. The problem with the terminal is that I don’t really need it all the time, so I usually find it buried under a group of windows.
-
Redland for RDF Work
Although my supervisor strongly recommend using JENA for RDF related work, but as I really don’t like Java (just personal preference), and wouldn’t want to install JRE/JVM (whatever it is called) at my shared server account, so I went to look for an alternative. After spending some time searching, I found this library called Redland and it provides binding for my current favorite language — PHP, so I decided to use this for my RDF work.
-
Weekend Code Quiz – Easy Template Parser
A friend of mine recently posted a screenshot containing a code snippet for a fairly straight forward problem. So after reading the solution I suddenly had the itch to propose another solution that I initially thought would be better (SPOILER: Turns out it isn’t). Then mysteriously I stuck myself to my seat and started coding an alternative solution to it instead of playing Diablo 3 just now.
-
New directory structure
While the previous file structure works well, I decided to tune some details before deploying the latest WordPress release. Besides that, I also started a new theme development project after my last theme which was developed more than 2 years ago. Thankfully, everything seems to work so far.
