Haven't coded in years, want to start. I have a specific project in mind.
October 4, 2010 8:30 AM Subscribe
Haven't coded in years, want to start. I have a specific project in mind.
Way back when, I did some coding (mostly shell scripts, basic C++, and HTML stuff). I have forgotten all of it. I would like to rediscover that skill and I have a specific project in mind -- I want to be able to select a random file from a directory, send it to the printer, and then move the file to another directory (I have a very, very large to-read directory and want to encourage myself to start winnowing this down). What would be the best way to learn to do this? I know it is probably pretty trivial in a shell script, but I feel like I should learn a skill that may be useful beyond this particular project. Is python the way to go? Ruby?
Bonus points if I could learn to send it to Instapaper instead of the printer as well. I'm not looking for the code on how to do this, I'm looking for recommendations as to what to learn to do this. I'm on a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard.
Way back when, I did some coding (mostly shell scripts, basic C++, and HTML stuff). I have forgotten all of it. I would like to rediscover that skill and I have a specific project in mind -- I want to be able to select a random file from a directory, send it to the printer, and then move the file to another directory (I have a very, very large to-read directory and want to encourage myself to start winnowing this down). What would be the best way to learn to do this? I know it is probably pretty trivial in a shell script, but I feel like I should learn a skill that may be useful beyond this particular project. Is python the way to go? Ruby?
Bonus points if I could learn to send it to Instapaper instead of the printer as well. I'm not looking for the code on how to do this, I'm looking for recommendations as to what to learn to do this. I'm on a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard.
Best answer: What would be the best way to learn to do this? I know it is probably pretty trivial in a shell script, but I feel like I should learn a skill that may be useful beyond this particular project. Is python the way to go? Ruby?
Any of these would work fine. I see tons and tons of Python scripts for simple system scripting things like this these — it seems to be the go-to scripting language the way Perl used to be — so maybe that's the more useful one to learn.
The Instapaper API looks pretty straightforward, you just need to be able to make simple web requests.
posted by enn at 8:39 AM on October 4, 2010
Any of these would work fine. I see tons and tons of Python scripts for simple system scripting things like this these — it seems to be the go-to scripting language the way Perl used to be — so maybe that's the more useful one to learn.
The Instapaper API looks pretty straightforward, you just need to be able to make simple web requests.
posted by enn at 8:39 AM on October 4, 2010
Best answer: AppleScript and Automator could probably do this. Python or Ruby could do this too with the tricky part being the printing.
Here's a tip for sending a file to a printer in Ruby.
posted by madh at 8:40 AM on October 4, 2010
Here's a tip for sending a file to a printer in Ruby.
posted by madh at 8:40 AM on October 4, 2010
Best answer: Python or Ruby are both certainly very reasonable choices to accomplish this task. At this stage, picking one or the other is more of a personal preference than anything else. Either should have the ability to talk to your printer and both definitely can talk to the Instapaper API. I personally like Python and recommend Dive Into Python as a reasonable way to learn the language. It even has a couple of chapters specifically on the underlying techniques that you will need to use the Instapaper API.
Good luck.
posted by mmascolino at 8:43 AM on October 4, 2010
Good luck.
posted by mmascolino at 8:43 AM on October 4, 2010
Best answer: I prefer Perl to either Python or Ruby, but no need to start a religious war about it, any of them are capable of accomplishing this goal. It really depends on what your long-term goal is-- are you looking to build a skill or just get this one thing done? If it's the former, take the language you think would serve you better in the long run and choose that one. I can't tell you which one will serve you better because there is no one-size-fits-all answer to that question.
If you did choose Perl, processing the large dir should be done with the more efficient and easier-to-use File::Next module rather than File::Find. Instapaper has an API that uses HTTP, so in Perl you'd likely want to look into LWP to handle that. Python and Ruby will have similar libraries for scripted web communication.
My own preference for learning the language from the ground up is finding a book called "Learning X", where X is your language to learn. Then while you work through the book, shut off the dang internet so you can FOCUS. I find this approach much more productive than the random walk that is searching the internet for online tutorials. The only caveat to this is that I tried this with the O'Reilly book Learning Python and found the book fairly miserable. That was in sharp contrast to Learning Perl, which was excellent. YMMV.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:44 AM on October 4, 2010
If you did choose Perl, processing the large dir should be done with the more efficient and easier-to-use File::Next module rather than File::Find. Instapaper has an API that uses HTTP, so in Perl you'd likely want to look into LWP to handle that. Python and Ruby will have similar libraries for scripted web communication.
My own preference for learning the language from the ground up is finding a book called "Learning X", where X is your language to learn. Then while you work through the book, shut off the dang internet so you can FOCUS. I find this approach much more productive than the random walk that is searching the internet for online tutorials. The only caveat to this is that I tried this with the O'Reilly book Learning Python and found the book fairly miserable. That was in sharp contrast to Learning Perl, which was excellent. YMMV.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:44 AM on October 4, 2010
Response by poster: Great responses! The files are all PDFs. I am looking to build a skill and perhaps learn a language that I can use for web scraping in addition to task automation later on. The answers here have me leaning towards Python.
posted by proj at 8:46 AM on October 4, 2010
posted by proj at 8:46 AM on October 4, 2010
Best answer: I believe on a Mac you can print a PDF with the shell command "lpr filename.pdf", that should make your job much easier.
posted by miyabo at 8:58 AM on October 4, 2010
posted by miyabo at 8:58 AM on October 4, 2010
It doesn't matter what language you choose for this, so yeah, Python.
posted by rhizome at 11:14 AM on October 4, 2010
posted by rhizome at 11:14 AM on October 4, 2010
Per your follow up: for webscraping, Python has BeautifulSoup, which by itself is sufficient reason to choose Python.
posted by signal at 2:15 PM on October 4, 2010
posted by signal at 2:15 PM on October 4, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
I would use Python for the file handling and a small AppleScript to do the actual printing. You can pass command line arguments to an AppleScript script.
posted by jedicus at 8:36 AM on October 4, 2010