Older blog entries for ingvar (starting at number 185)

Unanticipated kernel issues means that most (if not all) links pointed at in earlier diary entries are off-line. I'm hoping to have things back in the air within the next 12 hours.

I've also, hopefully, learnt that I should double-check that what I think is availabel at boot is, in fact, available at boot. :(

14 Jun 2006 (updated 14 Jun 2006 at 13:55 UTC) »

The python hacking seems to be progressing apace. Server-side is completed. Network protocol layer is done and tested (telnet is sometimes a useful test client). Implementing the client library is progressing, though isn't quite finished (it can, currently, authenticate to the server and disconnect; actually doing something useful isn't happening yet).

However, I did find some useful displacement activity (namely, writing a little piece on document management and workflow).

At some point, I should, probably, try getting all these little pieces together and see if there's ripples to be made.

Sometimes, I miss "proper macros". A lot. I'm trying to get an old stinker of a project done and dusted (it's essentially a re-write, in another language, of an older project; but back-ending onto a database, with only a client/server approach as opposed to the "same, almost, API; either local library modifying back-end straight or clients/server via network"). OK, I am moving teh project from C to Python (notice that "database backend"? that'd be why).

But as part of the new rewrite, I want to have some sensible exception/error handling and to my mind that means handling different types of errors differently (it's basically a workflow system and map errors, user-related errors and item-related errors are all fundamentally different). But, alas, this means I end up writing several lines of almost-duplicate code (class declaration differing in only class name; __init__ declaration identical; __init__ body, differing in one string).

It feels horribly inefficient and should, probably, have been compressable with either a code generator (free-standing from the rest of the code, requires a separate phase to run) or by a sufficiently flexible macro system.

But! I shall persevere! It is good for the soul (hah, I'm not even fooling myself) to experience pain. I guess I could the pre-existing code away and rewrite everything from scratch (OK, not the db schema, I'm sufficiently happy with that). But that'd be, like, a pain too.

Seems I didn't brave Foyle's, after all. Lots of stuff, mainly boiling down to "so tired, so incredibly tired, there's a nice, warm cozy home right here, not moving at all".

With a bit of luck... Actually, with a bit of even more luck, I shall do some hardware disassembly and get a better gfx card in new-head (the one out of old-head).

So, comes Sunday, I shall brave the halls of Foyle's and see what I can pick up in the way of concise DirectDraw and Direct3D references I can pick up, then we shall see how flexible the lispg backend structure ACTUALLY is.

If I play this right, there might even be an ILC paper in this (on a DSL track if there is one).

And, indeed, I have been inactive. I mostly blame work (lots of bespoke throw-away code, not a single byte of it in lisp).

And now, small-cl-src (and small-cl-src-discuss are resurrected.

Thanks, Mario!

UK-Lispers has been resurrected, courtesy of Mick Levine and the ALU. All subscribers should have been informed via mail a week or so ago.

It seems as if small-cl-src (and -discuss) are well on their way to be resurrected thanks to Mario, Erik and common-lisp.net.

Alas, stuff meant that my intended April Fool's Joke wasn't completed. I guess the Swedish lispers will be handed what I have within a few days.

Nopes, no mailing lists. I might be able to recover the subscriber data for uk-lispers and small-cl-src. I shall see about the archived posts.

Now, that was interesting.

Unplug the ATA controller and the CD-ROM is bootable-from. With a bootable CD-ROM, we can (temporarily) get a network module up and with a network module, we can by sheer force of apt get a new kernel down and with a new kernel, we can then shove the ATA controller back in place, creating vastly more diskspace than before (imagine a decimal order of magnitude), making for lots of nicely chunky free space.

Then, of course, comes the fun of juggling data around and coalese stuff into less unsuitable chunking. Should've gone for LVM, shouldn't I?

Anyway, that means all bar lists should be back on-line and I should hopefully have time to sort them through this week.

Ahahaha. Haha. Hah. Well, that was "fun", having most (if not all) modules eaten by an interesting combination of build tools and "make modules_install". Hopefully everything should be back on track soon.

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