February 2005 Archives
16 February 2005 11:08 AM SAST
Hula Hoops
Very pleased to see the announcement
of the Hula Project, a
lovely web based mail and calendar solution that Novell has
open-sourced. They really seem to be heading in the right direction
with this one.
Downloaded it and tried to set it up, still a few hiccups so will wait a few days and have another look.
The idea of rich but simple DHTML client interfaces is fantastic
Downloaded it and tried to set it up, still a few hiccups so will wait a few days and have another look.
The idea of rich but simple DHTML client interfaces is fantastic
11 February 2005 3:26 PM SAST
PyLucene and Java to Python Doc hacking
Have been playing around with
PyLucene which is
a native-compiled Python version of Lucene, a Java text indexing
and searching package.
It's an impressive engineering feat - basically compile Lucene to native objects using GCJ and then use SWIG to produce Python bindings - given how simply it works.
Was quite quick to get up and running, and have started improving search in Pootle using it. The main slowdown was documentation - you have to read the Lucene Javadoc, and the SWIG-generated Python classes don't have any documentation or info about their own parameters directly.
So I hacked together some code that parses the Java files, strips out the method declarations and javadoc comments, and then tries to insert them as docstrings into the Python files. More info in the 'Simple automated docs' message I posted to the list. Andi, the original author, was planning to add docs before the 1.0 release, hopefully these will help people until then.
Anyway, now I can carry on using the indexing instead of hacking at it
It's an impressive engineering feat - basically compile Lucene to native objects using GCJ and then use SWIG to produce Python bindings - given how simply it works.
Was quite quick to get up and running, and have started improving search in Pootle using it. The main slowdown was documentation - you have to read the Lucene Javadoc, and the SWIG-generated Python classes don't have any documentation or info about their own parameters directly.
So I hacked together some code that parses the Java files, strips out the method declarations and javadoc comments, and then tries to insert them as docstrings into the Python files. More info in the 'Simple automated docs' message I posted to the list. Andi, the original author, was planning to add docs before the 1.0 release, hopefully these will help people until then.
Anyway, now I can carry on using the indexing instead of hacking at it
09 February 2005 9:15 PM SAST
Grief and celebration
The last two months have been full of
emotions of all shades...
Maurits and Kirsten's wedding on December the 18th. Fantastic celebration. Came out to discover that one of our friends from antenatal class's gorgeous baby Justin had died the night before, apparently of SIDS. Danielle used to meet up with his mum Kathy and some other mums. Heartbreaking grief.
Then Christmas celebrations with lots of family and friends (was great having MJ and then Brett and Jo to stay) and Jonny and Debbie's wedding.
Danielle's parents came to stay as well for about 10 days in early January, great for us all to enjoy James developing together...
Then on Saturday 16th of January received a tragic phone call from my brother Andrew telling us that Simon Pettit had died suddenly of a heart attack in New Zealand. Simon led Jubilee Community Church for 14 years and was a great-hearted man. He ran to the end, always pointing upwards. Danielle and I were so privileged to have been on a trip with him to India in 2002. Almost every discussion I had with him made me see the issue in a totally different light. So full of life, it seems impossible.
The afternoon after his funeral, a young man in our church who has been suffering from a brain tumour died. His parents have been absolutely courageous.
Then on the 28th of January, one of my dad's oldest friends, Brian Hahn was attacked on the university campus and critically wounded. He eventually suffered a stroke and became unconscious the following wednesday, and died on Saturday the 5th of February. This has been really tough for my dad - they founded a Christian newspaper on campus while they were still students. He spoke at the memorial service today.
And in the midst of all this, I'm thoroughly enjoying being married to Danielle and a father to James. "Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief" (Proverbs 14:3) has come to mind repeatedly. The New Testament seems to have a much deeper understanding of suffering than we tend to as well, been pondering these things. And praying for family members whose loss is profoundly deeper than mine.
Maurits and Kirsten's wedding on December the 18th. Fantastic celebration. Came out to discover that one of our friends from antenatal class's gorgeous baby Justin had died the night before, apparently of SIDS. Danielle used to meet up with his mum Kathy and some other mums. Heartbreaking grief.
Then Christmas celebrations with lots of family and friends (was great having MJ and then Brett and Jo to stay) and Jonny and Debbie's wedding.
Danielle's parents came to stay as well for about 10 days in early January, great for us all to enjoy James developing together...
Then on Saturday 16th of January received a tragic phone call from my brother Andrew telling us that Simon Pettit had died suddenly of a heart attack in New Zealand. Simon led Jubilee Community Church for 14 years and was a great-hearted man. He ran to the end, always pointing upwards. Danielle and I were so privileged to have been on a trip with him to India in 2002. Almost every discussion I had with him made me see the issue in a totally different light. So full of life, it seems impossible.
The afternoon after his funeral, a young man in our church who has been suffering from a brain tumour died. His parents have been absolutely courageous.
Then on the 28th of January, one of my dad's oldest friends, Brian Hahn was attacked on the university campus and critically wounded. He eventually suffered a stroke and became unconscious the following wednesday, and died on Saturday the 5th of February. This has been really tough for my dad - they founded a Christian newspaper on campus while they were still students. He spoke at the memorial service today.
And in the midst of all this, I'm thoroughly enjoying being married to Danielle and a father to James. "Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief" (Proverbs 14:3) has come to mind repeatedly. The New Testament seems to have a much deeper understanding of suffering than we tend to as well, been pondering these things. And praying for family members whose loss is profoundly deeper than mine.