7 ms·

Reworder – A tale of learning Python and launching an app in five days.

54 points by sahillavingia 16y ago

Luyt 16y ago
make sure you use tabs to format all of your Python code I disagree. Idiomatic Python uses 4 spaces per indent. Either solely use tabs or solely use spaces, they don’t work well together, at least in my experience Mixing tabs and spaces is indeed very unwise. You can run Python with the -tt option to make sure you're consistent. Read Style Guide for Python Code for more advice on this front I agree ;-) The author probably refers to PEP8, http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
- sahillavingia 16y ago
  Ah yes, I'll read more into it! thanks :)
- shortlived 16y ago
  I was fixing a makefile the other day with a coworker and it ended up being an indentation issue. And then we asked out loud why anyone would repeat this hell again... Now, I am not a python programmer, but I am interested to learn more about how the structure via indentation how worked out for the language.
- bwooceli 16y ago
  Could not agree more!!!! If you're a vimmy, be sure to add this friendly helper into your .vimrc :set tabstop=4 :set shiftwidth=4 :set expandtab
  - mattdawson 16y ago
    Or, if you only want to use these settings for python files, create a ~/.vim/ftplugin/python.vim file. Mine looks like this: setlocal tabstop=4 setlocal softtabstop=4 setlocal shiftwidth=4 setlocal textwidth=80 setlocal smarttab setlocal expandtab setlocal smartindent
    - whimsy 16y ago
      Today I learned... Thanks. It looks like ftplugin is a native vim extension - is that correct?
      - mattdawson 16y ago
        I'm a bit late in responding, but yes, it's a native vim extension. To make sure your plugins are loaded automatically, put filetype plugin on in your .vimrc.
torme 16y ago
Completely unrelated to your write up but theres a bug. In FF if I back up and resubmit it doesn't update to the new text. I still see my first submission.
- sahillavingia 16y ago
  Ah yes, I randomly generate a permalink on load of the page, so it uses the old permalink, hence why it loads the first submission. Any ideas on how to change this?
  - torme 16y ago
    I guess just generate the permalink in the action and redirect to that instead of having it in the form itself. Something like: Form: /reworder/generate Action: Generates text, creates permalink and then redirects user to that permalink. In the web world this pattern is common, called redirect-after-post. I'm not sure if thats much help, I've only used python in the context of the Pylons framework (and have only a few days experience with it at that). If you need more guidance let me know and I'll try and clarify. edit: Link to redirect after post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post/Redirect/Get http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post/Redirect/Get edit2: I should also say this is a pretty sweet project, sorry if I just listed criticisms.
    - sahillavingia 16y ago
      Of course not, I love criticisms. How else do I improve? I'll implement that ASAP.
jacquesm 16y ago
Hey, weren't you supposed to be a designer :) That's pretty quick to go from 0 to launch in 5 days in an unknown language. Congratulations!
- sahillavingia 16y ago
  Designer, developer, coder, sleep-deprived. I'm a dude of many properties! :)
jscore 16y ago
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py", line 513, in __call__ handler.post(*groups) File "/base/data/home/apps/reworder/1.345779356045891791/reworder.py", line 140, in post synonym = synonym_for_word(stripped_word, tag) File "/base/data/home/apps/reworder/1.345779356045891791/reworder.py", line 201, in synonym_for_word return result.get(word_type)['syn'][0] KeyError: 'syn'
colbyolson 16y ago
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py", line 513, in __call__ handler.post(*groups) File "/base/data/home/apps/reworder/1.345779356045891791/reworder.py", line 140, in post synonym = synonym_for_word(stripped_word, tag) File "/base/data/home/apps/reworder/1.345779356045891791/reworder.py", line 201, in synonym_for_word return result.get(word_type)['syn'][0] KeyError: 'syn'
- olalonde 16y ago
  Hence, Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years[1]. All kidding aside, I'm pretty sure it's unrelated to the actual code :) [1] http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
smoody 16y ago
"App engine is fast and awesome, right now. However, if your site gets really popular, you may consider moving off of it." Perhaps you can explain why you believe this to be true? I thought that the strength of App Engine is that you can stay on it no matter how popular your app gets.
- sahillavingia 16y ago
  App engine doesn't allow certain features, like subdomains for each user, and non-www. URLs. Some other things too, that I probably don't even know about yet.
  - detst 16y ago
    While I agree that there are limitations with App Engine, I disagree with your two examples; not only are these possible, I think they have a nice solution on App Engine. 1. Wildcard subdomains and multi-tenancy seem to be a nice solution to "subdomains for each user". 2. Unless by "non-www. URLs" you mean naked domains, that is also possible; both explicitly defined and with wildcard subdomains. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you though.
dgreensp 16y ago
Breaks on apostrophes.
gurraman 16y ago
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py", line 513, in __call__ handler.post(*groups) File "/base/data/home/apps/reworder/1.345779356045891791/reworder.py", line 122, in post headers={'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}).content) File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-0.96/django/utils/simplejson/__init__.py", line 232, in loads return cls(encoding=encoding, **kw).decode(s) File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-0.96/django/utils/simplejson/decoder.py", line 251, in decode obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end()) File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-0.96/django/utils/simplejson/decoder.py", line 270, in raw_decode raise ValueError("No JSON object could be decoded") ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded Entered text "this is a test." and hit submit.
- sahillavingia 16y ago
  Figured out the bug: hit the API request limit. Argh!
StanDarsh 16y ago
Awesome story. Thank you very much for the Stanford links.
josephcooney 16y ago
He said he wanted to learn a functional language, and then listed Python and Ruby. Weird.
- sahillavingia 16y ago
  There's a joke here I don't get. Care to explain? :D
  - Nate75Sanders 16y ago
    Python and Ruby aren't functional languages. You can write code in them in a functional manner, but for anything more than toy programs you _likely_ wouldn't. They're heavily Object-Oriented, but could probably safely be called multi-paradigm. Not just "functional", though. Functional languages are Haskell, ML, others, where you express computation by composing functions (in the mathematical sense). You make lots of copies and you don't modify state directly like procedural and OO languages do where you modify state a lot.
    - meric 16y ago
      I remember it took me a dozen times of carefully reading explanations like this before I finally got what "functional" meant... I'll try to provide an explanation my former self would have easily got. lambda x: x+1 If you only program with lambda's like these, your program is functional. def dosomething(x): y = x + 3 # y is a global variable return x + 1 As soon as you have a function like this, your program is no longer 100% functional. The dosomething function modified `state` when it changed a global variable. Another function that modifies state is "print()". Generally any function that returns nothing is almost certainly going to modify state outside of it. (Otherwise what is the function for?) State is memory that is not `local` to the function itself. def dosomething(x): y = x + 3 # y is a local variable return x + 1 The dosomething function here is functional, because the only `state` it modified was local to the function. There you have it.
      - mixu 16y ago
paulbaumgart 16y ago
Any input containing a forward slash results in a ValueError.
itsnotvalid 16y ago
"I was already pretty dead set on learning a functional language (either Python or Ruby)" Did I see something strange here?
- rimantas 16y ago
  He meant javscript. A common typo.
  - Jach 16y ago
    Eh? How is Javascript any more functional than Python or Ruby?
davidj 16y ago
if anyone cares, rephrasing engines are used to create splogs for SEO

54 points by sahillavingia 16y ago

Luyt 16y ago

make sure you use tabs to format all of your Python code I disagree. Idiomatic Python uses 4 spaces per indent. Either solely use tabs or solely use spaces, they don’t work well together, at least in my experience Mixing tabs and spaces is indeed very unwise. You can run Python with the -tt option to make sure you're consistent. Read Style Guide for Python Code for more advice on this front I agree ;-) The author probably refers to PEP8, http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

sahillavingia 16y ago
Ah yes, I'll read more into it! thanks :)
shortlived 16y ago
I was fixing a makefile the other day with a coworker and it ended up being an indentation issue. And then we asked out loud why anyone would repeat this hell again... Now, I am not a python programmer, but I am interested to learn more about how the structure via indentation how worked out for the language.
bwooceli 16y ago
Could not agree more!!!! If you're a vimmy, be sure to add this friendly helper into your .vimrc :set tabstop=4 :set shiftwidth=4 :set expandtab
- mattdawson 16y ago
  Or, if you only want to use these settings for python files, create a ~/.vim/ftplugin/python.vim file. Mine looks like this: setlocal tabstop=4 setlocal softtabstop=4 setlocal shiftwidth=4 setlocal textwidth=80 setlocal smarttab setlocal expandtab setlocal smartindent
  - whimsy 16y ago
    Today I learned... Thanks. It looks like ftplugin is a native vim extension - is that correct?
    - mattdawson 16y ago
      I'm a bit late in responding, but yes, it's a native vim extension. To make sure your plugins are loaded automatically, put filetype plugin on in your .vimrc.

torme 16y ago

Completely unrelated to your write up but theres a bug. In FF if I back up and resubmit it doesn't update to the new text. I still see my first submission.

sahillavingia 16y ago
Ah yes, I randomly generate a permalink on load of the page, so it uses the old permalink, hence why it loads the first submission. Any ideas on how to change this?
- torme 16y ago
  I guess just generate the permalink in the action and redirect to that instead of having it in the form itself. Something like: Form: /reworder/generate Action: Generates text, creates permalink and then redirects user to that permalink. In the web world this pattern is common, called redirect-after-post. I'm not sure if thats much help, I've only used python in the context of the Pylons framework (and have only a few days experience with it at that). If you need more guidance let me know and I'll try and clarify. edit: Link to redirect after post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post/Redirect/Get http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post/Redirect/Get edit2: I should also say this is a pretty sweet project, sorry if I just listed criticisms.
  - sahillavingia 16y ago
    Of course not, I love criticisms. How else do I improve? I'll implement that ASAP.

jacquesm 16y ago

Hey, weren't you supposed to be a designer :) That's pretty quick to go from 0 to launch in 5 days in an unknown language. Congratulations!

sahillavingia 16y ago
Designer, developer, coder, sleep-deprived. I'm a dude of many properties! :)

jscore 16y ago

colbyolson 16y ago

olalonde 16y ago
Hence, Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years[1]. All kidding aside, I'm pretty sure it's unrelated to the actual code :) [1] http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

smoody 16y ago

"App engine is fast and awesome, right now. However, if your site gets really popular, you may consider moving off of it." Perhaps you can explain why you believe this to be true? I thought that the strength of App Engine is that you can stay on it no matter how popular your app gets.

sahillavingia 16y ago
App engine doesn't allow certain features, like subdomains for each user, and non-www. URLs. Some other things too, that I probably don't even know about yet.
- detst 16y ago
  While I agree that there are limitations with App Engine, I disagree with your two examples; not only are these possible, I think they have a nice solution on App Engine. 1. Wildcard subdomains and multi-tenancy seem to be a nice solution to "subdomains for each user". 2. Unless by "non-www. URLs" you mean naked domains, that is also possible; both explicitly defined and with wildcard subdomains. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you though.

dgreensp 16y ago

Breaks on apostrophes.

gurraman 16y ago

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py", line 513, in __call__ handler.post(*groups) File "/base/data/home/apps/reworder/1.345779356045891791/reworder.py", line 122, in post headers={'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}).content) File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-0.96/django/utils/simplejson/__init__.py", line 232, in loads return cls(encoding=encoding, **kw).decode(s) File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-0.96/django/utils/simplejson/decoder.py", line 251, in decode obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end()) File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-0.96/django/utils/simplejson/decoder.py", line 270, in raw_decode raise ValueError("No JSON object could be decoded") ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded Entered text "this is a test." and hit submit.

sahillavingia 16y ago
Figured out the bug: hit the API request limit. Argh!

StanDarsh 16y ago

Awesome story. Thank you very much for the Stanford links.

josephcooney 16y ago

He said he wanted to learn a functional language, and then listed Python and Ruby. Weird.

sahillavingia 16y ago
There's a joke here I don't get. Care to explain? :D
- Nate75Sanders 16y ago
  Python and Ruby aren't functional languages. You can write code in them in a functional manner, but for anything more than toy programs you _likely_ wouldn't. They're heavily Object-Oriented, but could probably safely be called multi-paradigm. Not just "functional", though. Functional languages are Haskell, ML, others, where you express computation by composing functions (in the mathematical sense). You make lots of copies and you don't modify state directly like procedural and OO languages do where you modify state a lot.
  - meric 16y ago
    I remember it took me a dozen times of carefully reading explanations like this before I finally got what "functional" meant... I'll try to provide an explanation my former self would have easily got. lambda x: x+1 If you only program with lambda's like these, your program is functional. def dosomething(x): y = x + 3 # y is a global variable return x + 1 As soon as you have a function like this, your program is no longer 100% functional. The dosomething function modified `state` when it changed a global variable. Another function that modifies state is "print()". Generally any function that returns nothing is almost certainly going to modify state outside of it. (Otherwise what is the function for?) State is memory that is not `local` to the function itself. def dosomething(x): y = x + 3 # y is a local variable return x + 1 The dosomething function here is functional, because the only `state` it modified was local to the function. There you have it.
    - mixu 16y ago

paulbaumgart 16y ago

Any input containing a forward slash results in a ValueError.

itsnotvalid 16y ago

"I was already pretty dead set on learning a functional language (either Python or Ruby)" Did I see something strange here?

rimantas 16y ago
He meant javscript. A common typo.
- Jach 16y ago
  Eh? How is Javascript any more functional than Python or Ruby?

davidj 16y ago

if anyone cares, rephrasing engines are used to create splogs for SEO