http://blog.ianbicking.org Sat, 23 May 2009 02:35:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Lately I've been writing a few applications (e.g., `PickyWiki `_ and a revisiting a request-tracking application `VaingloriousEye `_), and I usually use no framework at all. `Pylons `_ would be a natural choice, but given that I am comfortable with all the components, I find myself inclined to assemble ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/05/22/webob-decorator/ A while back I `described fassembler `_ and one of the things I liked in it is how the configuration works. It uses a conventional declarative INI-style but also allows arbitrary code, so that defaults can be based on each other. Here's a basic example of a default configuration:: ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/04/20/treating-configuration-values-as-templates/ At `TOPP `_ there's a lot of traffic discussion, since a substantial portion of the organization is dedicated to `Livable Streets `_ initiatives. One of the traffic ideas people have gotten excited about is `Woonerf `_. This is a Dutch traffic planning idea. In areas where there's ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/01/16/woonerf-and-python/ A couple posts have got me thinking about cultural imperialism lately: a `post by Guido van Rossum about "missionaries" and OLPC `_ not about OLPC at all, `a post by Chris Hardie `_ and `a speech by Wade Davis `_. Some of the questions raised: are we destroying cultures? If ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/01/14/cultural-imperialism-technology-and-olpc/ I'm not a designer, but I spend as much time looking at web pages as the next guy. So I took interest when I came upon `this post on font size `_ by Wilson Miner, which in turn is inspired by the `100e2r (100% easy to read) standard `_ ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/01/14/modern-web-design-i-renounce-thee/ I've been thinking about an import/export API for `PickyWiki `_; I want something that's sensible, and works well enough that it can be the basic for things like creating restorable snapshots, integration with version control systems, and being good at self-hosting documentation. So far I've made a simple import/export system based ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/01/11/atompub-instead-o-webdav/ One of the constant annoyances to me in web applications is the self-proclaimed need for those applications to know about everything and do everything, and only spotty ad hoc techniques for including things from other applications. An example might be blog navigation or search, where you can only include data from ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/12/27/avoiding-silos-link-as-a-first-class-object/ In a `little wiki I've been playing with `_ I've been trying out little ideas that I've had but haven't had a place to actually implement them. One is how notification messages work. I'm sure other people have done the same thing, but I thought I'd describe it ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/12/17/javascript-status-message-display/ Following onto a set of recent posts (from `James `_, `me `_, then `James again `_), Martijn Faassen `wrote a description of Grok's version management `_. Our ideas are pretty close, but he's using buildout, and I'll describe out to do the same things with pip. Here's a kind of ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/12/16/using-pip-requirements/ `James Bennett recently wrote an article on Python packaging and installation `_, and Setuptools. There's a lot of issues, and writing up my thoughts could take a long time, but I thought at least I should correct some errors, specifically category errors. Figuring out where all the pieces ... http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/12/14/a-few-corrections-to-on-packaging/