Epiphany.

In Python, with iterators, the Visitor design pattern is useless. And a strongly-ingrained habit. Which I'm trying to break.

Here's a common Visitor approach:

class Visitor:
    def __init__( self ): ...
    def visit( self, some_target_thing ): ...
    def all_done( self ): ...

v = Visitor()
for thing in some_iterator():
    v.visit(thing)
v.all_done()

If we …

JavaScript is a swampy foundation for your enterprise codebase: My latest column at SD Times http://t.co/a82aUquk0d — Larry O'Brien (@lobrien) February 20, 2014

Lazyweb: Django REST Framework vs. Tastypie. Thoughts? #django — Joe Dougherty (@modusjonens) February 17, 2014

Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse... I had a great chance to do some Test-Driven Reverse Engineering on a rather complex C program. I extracted test cases. I worked with the users to gather test cases. And I rewrote their legacy app …

Somewhere, I have a vague recollection of reading advice from someone (Bill Gates?) that it takes three versions to get things right. The context may have been a justification of the wild success of Windows 3.0.

Or, I could be just making it up.

But one thing I have …

"Request help w/ finding a reference or you can post a blog about how you can you have 2 oracle servers …

Check out this month's Hacker Monthly. One of my Stackoverflow answers was reswizzled into a short article on class design. That was gratifying.

The question of testing came up recently. The description of the process sounded like manually "testing" some complex web application. When trying to work out manual "testing", I find it necessary to use scare quotes. I'm not sure there's a place for "manual testing" of any software.

I know that …

This is the kind of little program that would be in HamCalc. But doesn't appear to be.

Looking at the Airfoil web page, specifically, this one: http://airfoiltools.com/airfoil/details?airfoil=ls013-il.

The measurements are all given in fractions of the depth of the airfoil. So you have to …

Just a safety note for folks who use a lot of electricity. In the winter, you might have computers and space heaters. Or you might (like me) live "off the grid". We use an inverter with a transfer relay to switch between battery power and grid power. Recently, we had …