Django signals are evil
I was trying to figure out what a Django app was doing today. It turned out that the original developer had decided to monkey patch a third party app. I hardly need say that monkey patching is evil (i.e. a last resort), but one of the things I needed to check along the way was that there was no code being triggered by a (Django) signal, and the problems it causes are very similar to monkey patching. (more…)
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Beating Node.js with TCL
This is partly a reaction to people who talk as if Node.js is unique, and partly to test my code against something that has seen production use. There are all sorts of problems with doing this sort of comparison, and while I would have liked to compare more servers, used a better environment, performance tuned everything, done more measurements etc. but I think what I have done is enough to prove my point. (more…)
Python IDEs part 4: Liclipse and PyCharm
I have never liked the user interfaces of either Eclipse or Pycharm, so it is hard to be impartial. Liclipse, for those unfamiliar with it, is an Eclispe based IDE, that is a successor to Pydev. Both are proprietary, but prices are reasonable. After trying them again I still do not like Eclipse or Liclipse, but I do see the appeal of Pycharm. (more…)
Python IDEs part 3: Eric and Wing
Continuing looking at Python IDEs, I have been trying Eric and Wing IDE. Both primarily Python IDEs (although Eric also supports Ruby), both are very powerful, but one is free and open source, while the other is proprietary and expensive. (more…)
Python IDEs part two: Ninja and Komodo
Continuing my review of a number of Python IDEs, I am starting with two IDEs I already know I like: Komodo and Ninja. As I said in the first post before I have used both Komodo Edit (Komodo IDE is Komodo Edit with extra features). (more…)
Trying Python IDEs
I have been using Geany for a while, because it is lightweight and has a nice UI, and it will be my baseline for this comparison, but it lacks some features I would like to have. The most important is good auto-completion, but refactoring support would be nice and real time linting even nicer. So, I made myself a list of IDEs (and extensible editors) that met my criteria. (more…)
Open sources licenses still not understood (by Hiscox, at least)
Insurance company Hiscox has posted a misleading article on “the advantages and risks of open source software” in its “small business knowledge centre”. It is not clear who the article is aimed at, the explanations of legal issues are unclear, and the discussion of security issues irrelevant. They could have saved themselves from looking foolish if they had asked some with some technical knowledge and familiarity with the licences to review the article. (more…)
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Fossil vs Git
I have used Fossil for version control for a few years, and I like it, but this recent comment on the fossil-users mailing list made me think about its limits:
we must agree Fossil [..] much easier and friendlier to use.
It is, and it is not. I do recommend it, and it does provide a a lot of functionality and it is easy to learn and use. (more…)
Tablets: anti-consumer and anti-innovation
Tablet computers (and smart phones) are bad. They are bad for consumers and kill innovation. They move power from the owner of the device to its manufacturer, and denying the use of a cheap base for research and development, the very base that made the tablets possible in the first place, and, if PCs follow suit, innovation will become much harder. They deny consumers choice, are sometimes impossible to update (a security nightmare) and are inflexible. (more…)
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The real purpose of DRM
Ian Hickson, maintainer of the HTML5 specification, argues that the real purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage over device manufacturers. Although this is true for some applications of DRM, in many cases the purpose is to lock customers to particular devices and services, and to raise barriers to entry against new devices and services. (more…)
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