Rudimentary Art of Programming & Development

Sometimes, on your web application, there are other processes that happen independently from typical HTTP requests.

The type of such processes can be:

• daemon / cron.
• setup / deployment script.

If such processes are not registered to cherrypy, cherrypy might not be able to auto-reload properly when server-side codes changed. In general it is nice to have those processes starting/stopping properly relative to the web server (cherrypy in this case).

In cherrypy 3.1, processes like those can be registered via callback using cherrypy.subscribe function. See below:

• engine.subscribe(’start’, callback).
• engine.subscribe(’stop’, callback).
• engine.subscribe(’start_thread’, callback).
• engine.subscribe(’stop_thread’, callback).

Above functions in cherrypy 3.0 are:

• engine.on_start_engine_list.append(callback).
• engine.on_stop_engine_list.append(callback).
• engine.on_start_thread_list.append(callback).
• engine.on_stop_thread_list.append(callback).

References:

• http://www.cherrypy.org/wiki/UpgradeTo31
• CherryPy Web Site Process Bus

What is it?

It is a global function that’s a built-in of Array object.

Syntax:

Array.sort(comparisonFunction);

How to use sort():

• If sort function is being used without comparisonFunction parameter, the values inside array will first be converted into string, and sorted lexically.
• If sort function is used with comparisonFunction, it must return either 1, 0, or -1 depending on the comparison.

Here is a sample of comparisonFunction:

function compare(a, b)

{

if ( a < b ) { return -1; }

else if ( a > b ) { return 1; }

else () { return 0; }

}

Reference:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference:Global_Objects:Array:sort

Pirates Online is MMORPG based on Pirates of The Caribbean. This game is actually fun. Fun in a non demanding, casual but still packing lots of action. This game might actually worth spending monthly subscription.

Below are some good points about why I think this game rocks:

• The game client is fast to download (with cable connection) (+1.02).
• Pirates Online is not demanding at all in terms of graphic card (+999.99).
• There’s compelling single player story (+0.5).
• Navigation and Menu are easy to learn thanks to in-your-face-big-fat-arrow help pointers (+99.123).
• It is available on Mac (+9999999.99).
• Ship battles are sooo much fun (+15.00002).

Some of the bad thing on why it sucks:

• Free account is short, very very short. (- 10.3234)
• $15 per month might be a bit too expensive because it is not WOW (-1000,2213).

Try it, and see if you like Pirates Online.

http://mikewarot.blogspot.com/2008/03/python-sucks.html – Seriously? There are multiple ways of solving his problem since string behaves like list of chars.

http://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/02/19/why-python-sucks/ — Funny and exaggerating post about him not knowing documentation command in Python. I think he is definitely joking.

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2000-February/023373.html — Python mailing list, funny trolling without any reasons why Python Sucks Loud. Other people’s responses are funny as well.

http://www.neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2005/03/03/14801.aspx — He said, “Because I kind of think Python sucks and is as overrated as OS X and Pink Floyd.” Somehow, I don’t mind that quote at all.

http://zifus.blogspot.com/2005/12/ruby-on-rails-vs-python-web-frameworks.html – His first point is: Python Web Framework will never surpass Rails. I really don’t care about python web framework. Python programmers do not need web frameworks. His second point is: Python indentation (This kind of complaint is becoming like broken record).

http://daily.bluebones.net/2006/05/python-sucks.html — First point: Explicit self. Next point: Indent… again… (God damn it, just drop it already)

http://wiki.theory.org/YourLanguageSucks — Now, this is FUN! See how this wiki posting blasted on all languages.

Some basic stuff. By Henrik Thostrup Jensen.

Readers have seen the slides, now you get to see it on Google Video.

I’ve been reading TurboGears website, wiki, & FAQ for almost 2 weeks, now it’s about time to build something with it.

Below are steps I’ve done to have some sort of “Hello World” stuff.

Some Basic Pre-Assumptions

• You have already installed Python
• You will want to install easy_install. Read this for install instruction. Easy Install is like apt-get for Python modules.

Installation

• Download tgsetup.py from TurboGears website. Then run the script by calling python tgsetup.py
• The process above will install a whole bunch of TurboGears component such as:
  • Kid(think CakePHP’s thml or Rails’ rhtml)
  • CherryPy(think of WebServer)
• SQLObject (think Rails ActiveRecord) is preferred by TurboGears, so we need to install it. In your command-line console, type: easy_install sqlobject.
• When above are all finished, it’s time to create new project.

Creating New Project

• TurboGears gives you tg-admin tool (just like Rails’ generate or CakePHP bake script), so let’s use it.
• tg-admin is an interactive command-line tool which help you building some basic structure for your application.
• When this process is finished, see if your project is runnable.

Run the Web Server, See if Your Project is Runnable

• Inside your project directory, from command-line, type: python start-{your_project_name}.py
• By default, the web server (which is CherryPy) is using port: 8080. If that’s being used, change the configuration, which I will tell you how below.

Changing the Configuration

• The default configuration of TurboGears is pretty light weight, not quite real life setting. If you don’t like it, modify dev.cfg file.
• Inside dev.cfg file, you can:
  • use MySQL instead of SQLLite
  • Change the port of your Web Server
  • and more…
• Try restarting the server, see if your new configuration works.

Well, congratulation, you just created the structure for your next WEB 2.0 project!

In the next series, I will describe my adventure, using TurboGears, to build: Calculator! The next big thing in Web 2.0 world.

Below is the infamous research paper, which led to the creation of GOOG, the company.

This is 1 interesting slideshow about the peculiars of MySQL. Enjoy!