December 2003 Meeting
Wednesday, December 10th at 7pm, BrianDorsey's house.
Attendance
Talk
What we talked about (in no particular order):
DFP - an app for determining which files have changed and doing something with them. It'd make a very useful library... but after a quick look, it doesn't appear to be written to be easily re-used.
winGuiAuto.py - looks useful for testing windows GUI apps. It allows you to dynamically poke buttons & menu items and red values out of controls. It comes with a little notepad demo - I had to tweak it a bit to make it work, I guess notepad is slightly different in different versions of windows.
http://www.python.org/dev/dev_intro.html - Intro to Python development - worth reading for sure. Perhaps we could have a SeaPIG Python bug-fest?
ccrdf - A python library for parsing Creative Commons metadata. Creative commons has a variety of legally sound licences to help clarify how content can be re-used (or not). (Learn more, Comic introduction, How it Works comic) This is a library for parsing the computer readable versions of their licences. Could be useful for tracking the licences on things you download or intend to use in another project?
- Python database stuff:
db_row - useful for making it easier to use the data in your python app once you get it out of the database. Available as a pure python module and C extension.
SQLite and pysqlite - 80% of what you'll ever need a database for in a single 270K executable (or python module). Great stuff.
SQLObject and PDO - none of us have used these object to sql mappers, but they sure seem useful.
ctypes seems amazingly useful: ctypes is a Python package to create and manipulate C data types in Python, and to call functions in dynamic link libraries/shared dlls. It allows wrapping these libraries in pure Python. It works on Windows, Linux and MacOS X. Brian wishes that he understood a bit more about C & how to find out about which functions are available.
And some other stuff...
Brian's Marklarizing webproxy
From Brian:
Several of my friends have a running Marklar joke spawned from a South Park episode. (Example. For Marklar for the episode review click here and search for 'Marklar'.) Short version: There are aliens who use the word marklar for every noun - and no, it's not confusing. 
After a long weekend of Marklar overdose, I happened to run into a free word list which included parts of speech (Greg Ward's Moby). Something clicked in my brain and I decided I had to make a Marklarizing web proxy, so that the entire internet could be seen as a Marklar would see it. Eight hours and some pretty horrible code later (mostly on the proxy & HTML parsing side) I had something that mostly worked. Anyway, I demoed it at the meeting and this was our favorite page:
{{{Two arrested for running marklar-end marklar marklar By Marklar Ko Marklar Marklars staff marklar
Marklar County marklar's detectives have broken up a large marklar marklar in the Marklar marklar, and they said they've recovered a "black book" with the names of hundreds of marklars, including men who work for marklar marklars headquartered in Marklar.
The two marklars of the marklar, a 49-marklar-old woman who lives in Marklar, and her 31-marklar-old marklar, who lives in Marklar, were arrested. They have not been charged.
The two marklar used the Internet to advertise a marklar-end escort company called the "Marklar of Marklar." The Web site had pictures of available companions, a calendar of when they were available and marklars. Marklars could be made online.
Some of the escorts were brought in from out of state Las Marklars, New Marklar and Los Marklars to work marklar, according to the Marklar's Marklar.
Marklars were carefully screened, said marklar's Sgt. Marklar Marklar.
For example, potential marklars had to leave a work number, and someone inside the marklar marklar would marklar the number, marklar it was to confirm a dental marklar, he said.
This was done to make sure the marklar wasn't a police officer, Marklar said.
The Marklar's Marklar marklar not release the names of the marklars the marklars worked for, to avoid tainting the companies, Marklar said.
The men in the book, however, marklar likely be contacted soon, detectives said. They could face marklar charges of patronizing a prostitute.
In the 1990s, the two marklar were involved in another marklar marklar in the marklar called "Affluent Marklars."
An marklar tipped off the Marklar's Marklar about the Marklar of Marklar. }}}
Post-Meeting Talk