Tag Archives: python

Vim as IDE. Are you getting the wrong parts?

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There are a lot of discussion about how to make Vim “an IDE”. Vim is a great text editor, but when we are developing, there are lots of extra tools that are very useful. Code completion. Easy navigation through files and classes. Source control integration. Syntax checking. Navigation that understand the semantics. Integrated debugger.

My problem with IDEs (and I have used a few over the years) is that they give you a lot of support, but at the cost of increasing the complexity. They are slow for a lot of common operations and they use a lot of resources. Code completion, the good kind that will allow you to get the types of a method, not just finish your words (which most of the time is trivial), is useful when developing on a static language, but since I  program in Python is something that I can’t find good use of it. I just don’t use all that stuff, so I don’t feel I can justify to pay the price.

Another problem with IDEs is that they tend to be designed, by default, to the newbie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Vim is a pretty intimidating tool because is totally crazy for the rookie. But it generates a bloated environment to start with. If you open Eclipse, a popular IDE (and one I’ve used for some years), you’ll get a relatively small frame for the code, and a lot of extra stuff surrounding it. Logs, file navigation, class definition, a huge toolbar, maybe even a TO DO list…

This is a lot of stuff!

This is a lot of stuff!

For example, think about file navigation. Sure, it’s useful to move around. But it is used only at certain points in time. Most of the time, it’s just used as an entry point to code, and then the navigation can be achieved, either just moving around in the same file, by a referral from the code (like going to a method definition), or just searching on the whole project. In case you need to go to an specific file, you can then show the navigation window, or even better, search by filename. That only happens during small periods of time, so the rest of the time the window is just wasted space on screen. The same thing happen for a task list. It is useful to know the next step. But not while you’re working in one task.

Hey, it is possible to hide the navigation window, and display it only at the proper moment, to save space. I have done that. But it’s not there by default, so most of the people I know just keep it open “just in case, giving context”. They just get used to it, and don’t perceive it as a problem, But having half of your screen full of information that is irrelevant 95% of the time is a huge price to pay. And certainly not a good use of an IDE. The good parts of an IDE are things like automatic compilation and deployment, refactoring tools (not just renaming), debugging, help with the types in static languages, automatic generation of code, etc. Not showing everything, all the time.

Mimicking the wrong parts of an IDE

Mimicking the wrong parts of an IDE You can do better.

Vim is a text editor, but it is also sort of a philosophy. It is not about showing stuff, but about having stuff available at the right moment, with a quick command. It is not just about using hjkl to move around and having an insert mode. It’s about being precise. It is difficult at first, because you can’t simply discover what are the available options, but it also pays off in terms of focus and clean environment. When programming, the most important part is to keep as few things into mind as possible. Keeping all relevant information, which is already enough, but nothing more than can distract you for the task. It is also about doing one thing, and not a hundred. I use other tools for things like source control and debugging. After all, we have the whole OS to work as our IDE.

I use a small number of plugins in Vim. When you learn a little about it, you find out that it’s amazing the number of features and stuff that can be achieved “out of the box”, and how little extra is actually needed to have a really productive environment. It’s just that we need to move from the usual “browse through menus” world that most of software uses, and devout some time to, well, study and learn. It’s really worth it.

These are the times of miracle and wonder

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This started all when I was a kid.

This started all when I was a kid. Well, not the exact model, but this is more iconic, isn’t it?

My first computer was a second hand ZX Spectrum+ This says a lot about my age, I guess. I got it from my uncle, who bought himself a more powerful computer. I really loved that computer, and used it for quite a long time. It seemed so magical that you could play a tape, which sounded weird, and load a game. There was also the possibility of program from the command line, which I tried, but I never “got” exactly how to get from very basic stuff to anywhere.

A few years later, and after the Spectrum was broken, I obtain a PC. At first without a sound card, so it was strangely silent compared to the computers of my friends. But the change to a hard drive, where the load times were almost instantaneous was astonishing. Yes, there were disks, but even load something from disk was extremely fast compared to the 15 minutes to load from tape. The usage of MS-DOS was also magical. Learning all the commands, messing around with configuration options (differences between extended and expanded memory) on autoexec.bat and config.sys and even changing port jumpers physically on the cards to resolve problems.

When Plug And Play arrived, at Windows 95, most of the pain seem to disappear and configuration worked fine most of the time. Also having multitask and a GUI was amazing. Around the same time I got my first experience with Internet. Suddenly, there was a way to obtain information not from disks (or CDs), but from a network. It was a slap in the face, and I immediately understood that it was going to be a basic part of the future, as it is today. I think that was obvious to any one interested in computers. It took a considerable amount of time to get to a position where it was something common, as it will be charged by time initially and it was expensive.

I started college and learn more interesting, wonderful stuff. For example, UNIX, a “new” (for me, at least) operative system that seem to have the crazy idea of being able to be used for more than a user at the same time. Or the understanding the internals of computers, which got me a lot of “aahhh, now I get it” moments from previous experiences. Including the programming part, which I discovered was much more powerful and interesting than the small scripts I did before.

When I started my first job, I developed for systems that were also computers, but weren’t shaped as a box, an screen and a keyboard. And that you can compile in a machine code for another. I also learned a lot about how powerful and productive was to use properly development tools like IDEs and the Unix command line.

After that, I spend a few years without  working as developer, but when I came back, it looked like I missed stuff. Like how incredibly easier to use have Linux came to be, thanks to Ubuntu. So much, that after a problem updating my personal computer, I installed Ubuntu at home and never looked back to Windows (I use a Mac these days). But the thing that impressed me more, Virtual Machines. So you’re saying that I can run a full computer inside my computer? That’s amazing!

I also learned Python (and other scripting languages) and, coming from writing mostly C and C++, you can imagine how wonderfully productive it felt. It also have a really great environment, with modules to do anything that you can imagine. One of my first uses of it was to create an application on an Open Office spreadsheet, including dialogs to input information. I got so in love with Python that I decided to move my career around it.

It's Virtual Machines all way down

It’s Virtual Machines all way down

I got really impressed with the iPad presentation. It really was (and is) a magical device I had dreamed a long time ago. I have an iPad, I use it every day and it is probably my favourite device that I ever owned.

The thing that surprises me it’s that I still have this sense of wonder, of enthusiasm after living all those things. I have seen a lot, but somehow, keep that kid inside me that is amazed by technology and how far have we come, and how the next thing is really great. It’s not easy to perceive on a day-by-day basis if you work in this field, but taking a look back, just as close as 5 years back, things were quite different from now in the lands of technology. The change has also been accelerated. Software, in particular, seems to have flourish in ways that seemed impossible. There are better tools to generate it, that make complex projects to be able to be achieved by small teams in very short amounts of time. I know, there are also complains about how exactly this technological progress is happening, and how 50 years ago we think we were going to be able to live in Mars and to wear jetpacks, but I think that having permanent access to the greatest library on our pockets on devices getting faster and more capable every year is not a small achievement. We live in the future.

I remember all this from time to time, when I am tempted to be cynical on new products, like I’m sure you’ve read these days related to iOS 7, PS4 and/or Xbox One. There seem to be a lot of people that put their best “not impressed” face for almost every new release, and that’s not a good thing. Of course, there are things that I’m not particularly like or am fond of, for example the iPad mini (an smaller iPad? I’d love a bigger one, maintaing the weight), but I try to remember that there are people that will love all these things like I loved previous ones. I am not necessarily the ideal customer for everything, and I appreciate when a review is about describing the product and its strong and weak points and not that much about stating a (usually predetermined) opinion.

We are truly living in days of miracle and wonder since almost 26 years ago. I hope you’re enjoying the ride. I certainly am.

ffind is now available on PyPI

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Remember ffind (A sane replacement for command line file search) module/script ? I’ve just pushed it to PyPI, so anyone interested in giving it a try can install it doing

pip install ffind

Brilliant!

As this was my first submission to PyPI, I’ve follow this guide. It has been quite simple, once it is prepared to use setup.py. And remember, the code is available on Github, so feel free to check it and contribute!

Vim speed is not really the point

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500px-Vimlogo.svg

I am a Vim user. And a Vim fan.

I was fiddling around for some time, you know, just knowing the basics, because it is convenient to do small changes on servers without having to worry about installing anything. Just the basics, insert mode, some search, save,

and a couple more things. Then, around two years ago, I decided to give it a try as my main editor, after watching a presentation of a co-worker (my boss, actually) about how to use Vim (he has been using Vim for around 20 years)

At the beginning, it is quite difficult, to be honest. You have to relearn everything about editors. But I was doing OK after one or two weeks, so I kept using it. I was also forcing myself into improving my usage, reading about it and learning tricks…

Then, after a while of using it and read a lot of instructional material (I cannot recommend “Practical Vim” by Drew Neil strongly enough. It’s a FANTASTIC book), everything started to make sense. Let’s be serious, the problem with Vim is not exactly that is “difficult” per se, it’s that it is so alien to any other text edition experience, that you have to forget everything that you know about how to edit text. That’s why I don’t agree that the Vim learning curve is a myth. Because, when we first heard of Vim, we already have 10+ years of using things like Word, NotePad or Gmail to write text. We need time to assimilate how to edit text “the Vim way”. And that takes time to assimilate, as your muscular memory works against you.

And, yes, the Vim way is awesome. But it is awesome not for the reason that usually someone will think at the start. There is the perception that Vim is awesome because is fast. It is not.

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80 chars per line is great

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Probably the most controversial part of PEP 8 is the limit of 80 characters per line. Well, is actually 79 chars, but I’ll use 80 chars because is a round number and the way everybody referes to it.

Capture all the experience

Capture all the experience

There are a lot of companies where the standard seems to be “PEP8, except for the 80 chars line restriction”. On GitHub projects, which in general follow PEP8 (it seems to be a very strong consensus), that’s typically not found. In explicit code guidelines, the restriction could be increased (100, 120) or even removed at all. The usual reason for that is stating that we are not programming in VT100 terminals any more, and we have big, high-resolution screens. This is true, but I’ve found that that limitation, combined with the use of whitespace in Python, makes the code much more compact and readable.

It seems that, naturally, Python code tends to occupy around 35-60 characters (without indentation). Longer lines than that are much less frequent. Having suddenly a line much longer than the rest feels strange and somehow ugly. Also, having the mandatory indentation whitespace increase the line width is a good visual way of minimising the nested loops in your code and suggesting, in a subtle way, to refactor anything that is indented more than about four times.

For example, compare this:

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Great female participation on PyCon US 2013

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This picture is AMAZING

This picture is AMAZING

I have read that around 20% of PyCon attendees were women. I’m sure I’ve seen it on more places I can’t find at the moment, but is at least here.

This is fantastic news, a great success for the PyCon, the Python community, and specially groups like PyLadies and Lady Coders. The opening statements of Jesse Nollan is a must see.

As I have previously expressed some concerns in this blog about whether requiring a Code of Conduct is the best approach, I’d like to say that I was wrong and it seems that had a positive impact. The CoC is also currently under review, and I’m sure it will be improved. It has also been used with great care, as the PyCon blog shows, which is also something to kudos.

There has also been special programming tracks for kids, which is awesome.

Of course, that is not the end of the road, and there is still much to do, but it is very encouraging. Keep on the good track!

GitHub for reviewing code

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A couple of weeks ago we started (in my current job) to use GitHub internally for our projects. We were already using git, so it sort of make sense to use GitHub, as it is very widespread and used in the community. I had used GitHub before, but only as a remote repository and to get code, but without much interaction with the “GitHub extra features”. I must say, I was excited about using it, as I though that it will be a good step forward in making the code more visible and adding some cool features.

One of the main uses we have for GitHub is using it for code reviews. In DemonWare we peer-review all the code, which really improves the quality of the code. Of course, peer-review is different from reviewing the code in an open software situation, as it is done more often and I suspect than the average number of reviewers is lower in most open source projects. We were using Rietveld, which is a good tool, but probably not stellar when you start using it. The main process was, write code, submit it to Rietveld, ask for reviewers, check and discuss comments, update the code and repeat the process; and wait for approval for the reviewers to submit the code to the remote repo.

What can I say? I am quite disappointed with the result. It seems that the tools for code review in GitHub are not great, to put it lightly. Not great at all.

I guess that my disappointment is big because I though that, as GitHub is so used in the open source community, the review tools should be very good, as open source is all about checking and reviewing code that anyone can send. But the fact is that the review tool itself is pretty limited.

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Narcissistic numbers

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Here is a nice mathematical exercise from Programming Praxis. Is about finding the “narcissistic numbers”, n digit numbers numbers where the sum of all the nth power of their digits is equal to the number.

To reduce the problem a little, I decided to start by limiting the number of digits. So, the first approach will be just calculate if a number is narcissistic of not. So, after checking it and making a couple of performance adjustments, the code is as follows…

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Thoughts on Code of Conducts

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I’ve just read this statement from the PSF about requiring a Code of Conduct, and I felt somehow a little down.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that a CoC is something bad, and everything it says (at least the referenced PyCon US one and the example in geekfeminism.com) makes sense. It’s just that needing a CoC feels a little … formal.

I don’t like very much formality, as I like to think that PyCon conferences are more a bunch of somehow friends getting together and sharing knowledge. I’ve always felt very welcomed in the Python community here in Ireland, and the atmosphere in PyCon IE (and other meetings) is absolutely fantastic. I haven’t seen anything that I will consider remotely discriminatory (like I saw back on my college years, for example). I’ve always imagined that the rest of the Python conferences and communities have the same “magic”.

Of course, I am seeing this from my particular, mainstream european-male point of view. I am a foreigner here in Ireland, but less say on “close, european orbit”. I’m not sure if some of the problems that the CoC tries to avoid are present and I am just not noticing. I’d like to think that’s not the case.

I don’t know, makes me think about what is the general perception and behaviour of the development community. I know there is discussion out there about wether the  geek population is welcoming to diversity or just a bunch of jerks that just can’t behave (and all the spectrum in between). I guess it just makes me sad to think that we may need “an adult” telling us not to say things that we already know that we shouldn’t. It’s 2012, we have no excuse.

As I say, I just feel a little… disappointed. Like thinking that there is something wrong in all that, that we are grow up and that things are not on the same level of friendly informality. That we need rules to ensure everyone feels safe. I guess that a small number of spoiled brats that can’t behave like adults and are just ruining the party to everyone else. :-(

In defense of resting

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I have been watching recently some documentaries about software development, including the classic Triumph of the nerds (available in YouTube in three episodes, 1, 2 and 3) and Indie Game: The Movie. They are both very good  and I’d recommend them not only to developers, but to people interested in technology and/or entrepreneurship in general.

But they are very good exponents into something very present on the software scene, which is presenting crunch mode, working insane hours, in some sort of glamourised way. It is part of the usual storytelling and, and probably, part of the hard work -> ??? -> profit logic.

Let me told you something. When I was starting my career, on my first long term job, we once had a very strong deadline. This made us work in crunch mode for a long time (around 2 months). That meant working around 12 hours or more per day, 6-7 days a week. The very last day (a Sunday), I started working at 9:00 AM and went home the Monday at 6:00 PM, only stopping for eating something quick and going to the toilet. The rest of the team did similarly.

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