Tag Archives: Python code

So Random!

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Fun, Python

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To ring in the new year, I thought I’d play around with an old friend from my earliest programming days, a random text generator. Back then (over 30 years ago), but a little bit always, a good way to practice programming is by working on small, relatively easy, but still fun, programs.

Simple games are common choice, but not the only one. (I’ve probably written a version of Mastermind in every programming language I know.) Another fun choice is various image or text generators (or processors). Random text generators, in particular, offer a range of complexity depending on your taste and time.

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Knowing Where To Bang

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Python, Stories

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Sometimes ya gotta laugh. I just spent nearly an hour chasing one of those bugs that “can’t be happening” because “the code looks absolutely correct (as far as I can tell).” Of course, the bug, once you find it, was always hiding in plain view.

This time the fix involved adding just two characters and incidentally improving the program semantics, and very much reminded me of the old joke about the huge cargo ship that breaks down at sea…

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State Engines, part 3

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in CS101

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In the first two parts of this series I’ve introduced state engines and taken apart a specific instance of an engine. Now it’s time to tie together the design idea with approaches to building a variety of such engines.

Because the programming logic is in the state table, the engine can be fairly generic. That means it’s possible to create a state engine framework you can reuse for a variety of applications.

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State Engines, part 2

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in CS101

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Last time I introduced state engines and state tables. I showed parts of a simple implementation of one in Python. It parsed the language introduced in Little Programming Languages. This post continues that, so be sure you’ve read that first article.

I got as far as the state table implementing the process, and that’s where this post picks up. I’ll also get into the SourceReader class that does the heavy lifting.

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State Engines, part 1

08 Sunday Nov 2015

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At one point in my career, the state engine (SE) was one of my favorite AWK hammers. At the time much of the work involved text processing or, in some cases, serial byte processing (which is not quite the same thing). That sort of thing is right in the wheelhouse for a state engine.

They are a very useful tool and an important part of any programmer’s toolkit.

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Python & Baseball

19 Monday May 2014

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One of the cool things about being a carpenter is that you can make your own shelves and dog houses. One of the cool things about being a computer programmer is that you can make your own computer apps!

In an era when computers are so much a part of life, that’s a useful skill. And the nice thing about doing it yourself is that things turn out exactly as you want them. You can make things that are perfect just for you.

Case in point: using Python to create custom charts of baseball stats!

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New Blog!

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Blog

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I have a lot of computer programming stuff I’d like to write about, but it’s way too specific for my regular blog (which has a hard enough time attracting readers), and it’s too general to be appropriate for my Book of BOOL blog.

So here I go with blog number three. (Technically, blog number four; my very first blog was my now-long-abandoned baseball blog.) This blog is exclusively for writing about computer programming topics. Expect a mix of “stuff I’ve done that was fun” plus “stuff I’ve thought about and want to document” plus “good advice for coders.”

I’ve written some of those last kind on my regular blog. To get things going, and to put them in a more sensible place, I’ll re-post them here.

Soon. But for now, “Hello, World!” It’s a whole new blog!