Archive 4/2008

About a week ago I wrote about bringing some OOP into Django views and also posted some code for that. Since I use this in one project and want to move it also into some other project of mine, I've put this (together with some very simple pagination templatetag) into its own pluggable app and uploaded it github for everybody to slap me around for my coding style

So if you want to use this code, simply install the app available here (or just import the django_zsutils.utils.oopviews module).

Malcolm Tredinnick today merged his queryset-refactor branch into Django's trunk, which means everyone using trunk will finally be able to for example using a more sane syntax for ordering resultsets (no table names anymore), update multiple objects with just one query, tell select_related() which fields it should follow (instead of every foreign key it comes across) and much much more.

A couple of days ago, a topic came up on the django-users mailinglist where someone asked how to avoid code repetition in views if the views mostly do the same (for instance do some processing on the request parameters or check a certain session variable etc.).

There is one question you have to ask yourself first, though: Does this common processing require request-specific data like session-data or request parameters?

Yahoo just launched a new portal site dedicated to Flickr development on code.flickr.com. The site more or less aggregates content from the Flickr API group as well as a new developer blog. Besides that it also comes with a Trac installation (not all that completely set up yet, though) which I guess will be used for 1st party applications like the Uploadr.

Trac not yet really configured

Somehow the whole site looks remarkably unfinished considering that its already announced on the official mailing-list yesterday evening. For instance besides Trac just sitting there, there is also a really weird bug in the CSS when hovering a timeline item.

Don't hover links

But don't get me wrong: I like the idea of offering such a portal to the community, but I was a little bit surprised that it was announced that early. At least configuring Trac to have Uploadr as a component instead of the default "component1" and "component2" would have been nice

I'm also not quite sure yet, what the point is with logging in using your Flickr account ... from what I can tell, the login isn't integrated with the Trac installation and seems to be the only interactive part of the site ...

That said, I'm really curious what this site will be used for. Is perhaps Yahoo working on some more 1st party applications for Flickr?

The first time I saw the trailer for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune I wasn't overly excited about getting my hands on this game. Sure, it looked great, but just a little bit too much like Tomb Raider but with a dude (so back to Indiana Jones). Then when some folks over at 1UP got a change to play it, they described the main character as your normal dude who also acts like that. No über-hero, but someone you often get the feeling that he is scared, that he has a problem keeping his balance on a pole etc.

Finally a geeky meme

$ history|awk '{a[$2]++} END{for(i in a){printf "%5d\t%s\n",a[i],i}}'|sort -rn|head
   90   cd
   74   hg
   65   python
   40   ls
   39   git
   33   curl
   19   mate
   18   bash
   15   ssh
   14   mvn

Too bad history isn't really global, still a nice meme for a change

The more I play games like Super Stardust HD and Geometry Wars I have to wonder what really brings me back playing those quite simple games (compared to games like for instance Resistance or Halo 3) again and again. Sure, they are fun, but I guess another highly motivating aspect is the hunt for a new highscore.

I have to admit, when it comes to buying software for a simple task, I'm a little stingy. A few days ago I made a short video demo for a presentation and did so using Snapz Pro. But naturally right in the middle of it, I had to pause the recording because someone entered the room. I thought: Should be quite easy to remove the offending parts using iMovie ... well.

Today Pownce made quite a bunch of updates to its service according to an e-mail sent to all members. First of all, there are now even more previews available like for instance the new Flickr video service or Viddler.

• More videos and photos will show up right in your notes! Supported photo and video sites include YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, CollegeHumor, Zooomr, Photobucket, Ustream.tv, Viddler, Qik, Google video, Metacafe, Revver, and Viddyou. Whew!

Then there is now finally a feed button showing up in your browser when you access your profile.

Am I the only one who thinks that a social network about a single consumer product or a single brand is a stupid idea? Today, Mashable had an article about this topic and all I thought when skimming through the list of networks there was: "Why on earth should I just something like that???".