Artful Code

For the past few weeks I’ve been using the NetBeans (with the new Python module) as my primary IDE. I generally use TextMate, which is more than an editor and less than the kitchen sink, lying somewhere between BBEdit and Emacs. TextMate is fast and a pleasure to use, but lately I have found myself in need of something a little more robust.

Django’s cache is useful to speed up access to data from slow sources, such as a remote RSS feed. But if the remote source becomes inaccessible, the data disappears after the cache expires it. One solution is to store the data longer, but that can lead to stale data. Another solution is to keep two [...]

MySQL’s full-text search functions provide a simple framework for an easily implemented, approximate site search. Many sites, written in an interpreted language and powered by MySQL, can use MySQL’s full-text search to avoid third party dependencies. Submit article

HTML has no useful, built-in form widget for selecting from a large number of options. Some libraries offer Javascript-powered alternatives, but few of these are built to deal with more than a few hundred options. Submit article

Pike’s approach to threading is simple and mindful of the sanity of the programmer. Threading is available for all systems using Unix, POSIX, or Windows threads. Submit article