Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Programming

Your script is my command!

Drasher — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:09:18 -0800

[Software Development filter] I am working on a project that uses a PC (Windows) and a dedicated microprocessor to perform a specific task. I want to create a scripting language that will allow the user to write their own sequences for the tool. The front-end of the software is being created using MS Visual Basic (Visual Studio) 2008. There is a "processing" back-end being created with the same development package, but using C++ to create a DLL. The DLL uses USB to communicate with a PIC (PIC24FJ256GB110) microprocessor that will control elements of the tool (heater, flow controllers, valves, solenoids, and relays) and gather data from other elements (pressure sensors, temperature sensors, liquid sensors, gas chromatograph).

I want the end user to have the ability to write a script and have the tool process the commands.
The script will have a simple language and limited number of commands.

For example:
10 DELAY XXX ms/sec/min
20 TURN ON PUMP_1
30 TURN OFF VALVE_3
40 FLOW_CONTROLLER PURGE
50 FLOW_CONTROLLER 100 ml/min
60 IF PRESSURE_SENSOR_1 > 100 THEN GOTO [line number]
and so on...

I have searched for and found a couple of "tiny basic" interpreters written in C that look like they could be modified and wedged into service. These interpreters use integers only, I might need floating point capability (pressure value comparisons, etc.) One interpreter requires line numbers the other uses labels for GOTOs and GOSUBs. I don't know if I should use line numbers (requires renumbering at some point) or labels (preprocess a symbol table).

I have a feeling that the end users are not very computer savvy so the scripting would have to be easy to understand and provide adequate error messages.

Do you (or someone you know) have an idea of a better path?
Should I try lex & yacc?
Should I just suck it up and try starting an interpreter from scratch?

Any and all replies are welcome.
AskMe has pulled me out from a jam before, PLEASE do it again!

Programmable winch motor

allelopath — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:24:49 -0800

I need a programmable winch-like motor for an art project. The motor would act like a winch, reeling and unreeling cable. The motor would be on the floor, the cable would go from the motor to a pulley on the ceiling, then down to attach to the work. The work would weigh less than 100 lbs, so a winch made for a truck would be overkill, though I guess it wouldn't hurt. It needs to be programmable. I need to be able to program how much cable is reeled/unreeled, the speed of the reel/unreel, and the time between reel and unreel.

What is out there?

What first sparked your interest in computers?

pwnguin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:06:24 -0800

I need help finding citations for a story about programmer's inspirations. A giant whiteboard asks for the spark that interested people in computers and the answers are all video games. I recall reading a story about a whiteboard at a Silicon Valley company, I think it was Google, but for all I recall it could be MS in Redmond.

The story goes: There was a giant whiteboard hallway wall where someone would ask a question for people to answer on the board. One day someone put on the board "What motivated your interest in programming?" and the first answer was Super Mario Bros, (or something like that) leading to an epic list of old video games.

Can anyone point me to a website or reference of this story, or correct my story?

Learning Php in New York City

chirico — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:20:23 -0800

I would like to learn Php & Web Development programming by taking courses in NYC. Any advice, suggestions?

From Zero to Python Hero

KilgoreTrout — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:26:31 -0800

I'm interested in teaching myself Python as my first programming language. What kind of useful/interesting projects are recommended as a long term goal to work towards, given that I'm a total beginner? I've been messing with the idea of teaching myself a programming language as a hobby, and after a bit of research Python seems to be the one best suited for me. That being said, I know absolutely nothing about programming, and I'm interested in what exactly I'd be able to accomplish after I've taught myself the basics. I've pulled together a number of tutorials and books, and messed around a bit with the extreme basics, and I've enjoyed it, but I feel that it would really help to motivate me if I had some kind of an end goal or project that I could work towards.

I would rate myself as a relatively advanced computer user, I like tinkering around with different programs and set ups to get the most out of machines. As a bit of background, I'm currently running a laptop on Windows Vista as my main PC, and a mac mini as an HTPC hooked up to my plasma, which I use mainly to run Plex for my movies and TV shows. Does anyone have examples of what they've been able to accomplish as a beginner after a few months of learning, or any suggestions on goals/projects that I can work towards? I realize that this is an extremely broad question, but I want to keep things pretty open so I can get a feel for what's possible. I've found the posts on Askmefi really helpful for tracking down resources and tutorials, but not much in terms of suggested projects. Any recommendations for books or training resources are also appreciated to help me get there.

Help with a simple Visual C# coding problem?

kbanas — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:07:28 -0800

Oh God. Where to start? This is, at its heart, a programming question about C#. It's probably not a very hard programming question, either. Although it is against my nature, I will attempt to be brief. I recently built a Windows Media Center PC and hooked it up to my TV and I'm really loving the Windows 7 media center experience... except that all the music I've accumulated for the last 10 years or so is in iTunes. So, while I can watch movies and TV shows and browse my pictures and be a multimedia guru, if I want to listen to music I have to get up off the couch, close media center, launch iTunes and then pump up the volume.

On some level this really irritates me.

I explored exhaustively solutions that exist out in the wild. MCE Tunes looks like a great application that will basically allow you to access iTunes from inside WMC, but it doesn't work with Windows 7, and they have stopped supporting the product.

So, I set upon the idea of importing all my iTunes music into Media Player - thus making it accessible to my Media Center interface. Since Media Player can handle mp3 and m4a files (and thus, 99% of my collection), I figured it wouldn't be a really big deal. But the problem as I understand it is that Media Player can't read meta data from m4a files, and so this would cause a digital divide - I would then have two music programs pointed at the same library of music and I would have to update information in both libraries and make changes and corrections in both libraries and basically this felt like a major hassle. Plus, I would have to re-enter all the meta data for my m4a files!

There's another application called Sound Bridge that takes your iTunes library and dumps it into Media Player, but, again, this doesn't work with Windows 7 and an update does not appear to be on the horizon.

Great!

Well, I thought about it and, you know, hey, I have a CS degree - admittedly a little rusty, but I have one - so I was all like, "Hey, you know what, fuck it, I'll fire up Visual Studio 2008 and I'll just write my own program!"

So, I set out to write a C# program that would take my iTunes library file and collect all the track information and meta data and file info and then build a Media Player library out of it.

And, even though I was 99% sure I would fail miserably, I've actually made some progress.

I have, at this point, a console application that reads in my iTunes XML library, parses it, and then adds all the files and meta data to a Windows Media Player playlist. Except that, for some reason, on some files, while setting the meta data in Windows Media Player, I'll get a permission denied error, as if I do not have access rights to set a specific attribute (like, say, genre) for a specific track.

I've done some investigating and it looks like I may be able to resolve this issue by way of a function called requestMediaAccessRights() - apparently according to all the demos and code samples I can find, I should be able to do the following:

myMediaPlayerObject.settings.requestMediaAccessRights("full");

Except, for some reason, Visual Studio can't find that function. I can access a host of different functions for myMediaPlayerObject.settings, but requestMediaAccessRights just isn't one of them, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I'm adding the Media Player COM object to my project, and I can do everything else with Media Player.... that specific function just seems to be missing.

Does anyone have any idea why that might be?

The other thing I'm toying with is transferring the album art. I see from the MSDN that a Media Player media object has a "WM\Picture" attribute, which references a piece of album art, and I can get the album art out of iTunes, but I can't seem to figure out how to set the WM\Picture attribute.

Any clues?

Help me get into Rockstar ;)

prufrock — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:05:17 -0800

I have a phone interview with Rockstar New England. What should I expect? And is there anything obvious I need to prepare. I'm applying for a Game Programmer position. I applied there a couple of years ago when it was MadDoc Software. At that time, they handed me a 10 part test upon applying. It seems to me that their interview process has changed. And if I recall there were people on MeFi who work there. Any knowledge would be greatly appreciated, of course.

So, what is the process like these days. And is there something specific you recommend I brush upon.

Thanks!

Nerd seeks Leigh Steinberg

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:25:01 -0800

I'm a veteran software engineer / technical lead working for an internet company. I think I've got an opportunity to really cash in at my job, and need guidance on how best to do this. For the past two years I have been working on a product that is about to make my company some serious revenue.

Right now, I feel pretty irreplaceable. Because of some organizational turmoil and chronic understaffing, I have enormous development, management, and operational responsibilities. I have no backup for any of these roles. I have a good reputation in the company, as far as I know, and have done well-received presentations for our executives. I also have offers from other companies as a security blanket.

There will be a short window of opportunity for me to cash in, between the time when the deal to sell the product is signed and the time when I can train up whatever new staff comes along. Our product is a B2B thing with significant professional service opportunities. It's not turnkey. During this window, the sale will live and die on my efforts.

I would like to capitalize on that in a career-defining way. Exactly how I'll do that, I'm not sure. I have some ideas, but I need help with them.

So: I would like to hire someone who can give me a reality check, who can help me hone my pitch and define my requirements, and who has a background in business, negotiation, and contract law. I want this person to help me look like I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't think I want to hire someone to do the actual negotiating; I want more of an advisor. Can anyone suggest where to find such a person? I am in Seattle so if you have a recommendation in this area, that'd be especially cool.

Is there a website that tracks information about companies that have offshored information technology jobs?

cosmic.osmo — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:25:50 -0800

Is there a website that tracks information about companies that have offshored information technology jobs? I'm looking for a website that tracks companies that have offshored information technology jobs, and that can provide information about the locations and sizes of their offshore offices.

I've seen references to one at techsunite.org from around 2004, but it appears to be defunct.

Where to get started with Python GUI programming?

cowbellemoo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:46:59 -0800

Which Python GUI framework is right for someone new to GUI programming? But who may also aspire to open source community (linux) development/involvement? Cross platform, wonderful documentation/tutorials, and cruft-free new technology are also welcome. My current need is just for a simple GUI front end for scripts I write in work for Windows, but one day I'd like to have GUI skills robust enough to help out with open source development. I've given this list a look, but I really don't know where to start. I know GTK/Qt are the most commonly utilized, but are there any exciting new next-generation graphical toolkits? What's fun to learn? What are your favorite tutorials, books, or resources for it?

Any and all suggestions welcome! Thanks!

I am struggling with relatively simple algorithms. Am I doomed?

kitcat — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:38:46 -0800

ProgrammingFilter: Just how lame is it that I can't come up with (create from scratch) a string matching algorithm? Can I still become a programmer? I need your honesty. Coming up with a simple string matching function is one of the problems I've been working on for an intro programming class: i.e., determine whether the second string can be found in the first string and return $found = true or false.

My sense is that, for any semi-intelligent trying-to-learn-programming Person Who Applies Herself, this should not be all that difficult. I think of myself as pretty darn intelligent. And yet, I've put about 10 hours into this so far and am ready to conclude that I CANNOT DO THIS. Yes, I've broken the problem down, I've tried to draw flowcharts. I've made many starts and stops. Ok, given a cave and maybe 3 days, I could probably to do it. But that's not the point. I should have been able to figure this out by now.

I have a background in literature and just don't have what they call a 'natural aptitude' in math and logic. Up until now I've told myself that it's ok not to have a natural aptitude in something: hard work and practice will get me where I want to be. At least, that's what I thought until right about now.

My question is this - and tell me the truth. How ________ (insert derogatory adjective describing my intelligence) am I for not being able to come up with this algorithm? And please be honest. Should I start reconsidering my plan to become a programmer?

Thanks in advance.

Seeking clicking mechanism or design...

pallen123 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:21:02 -0800

What kind of small toys or devices click when you rotate them forwards and backwards? Seeking mechanism or design... I’m trying to help a friend design a small toy and she needs a mechanism that will click in very small increments as she rotates a small (1 inch diameter) dial that turns 360 degrees on its axis. She needs the dial to click precisely as it turns clockwise and counterclockwise in smallish increments. I was thinking a fishing reel mechanism might work, but that just allows turning in one direction. Then I thought a ratchet wrench mechanism might work, but that also turns in just one direction (and I’m not sure how the inside of a ratchet wrench works either). Can anyone think of existing toys or devices that have a clicking mechanism that freely rotate? Novel solutions? Suggestions? Thank you!

MacgyverFilter: link sharing using MS Office

Monday, stony Monday — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:23:17 -0800

Macgyver IT: I want my team to use something like del.icio.us to share links. But since this is ask.metafilter, I can't use the obvious right answer. I need to make something like it myself, using ~~bubblegum and string~~ the MS Office 2000 suite and my knowledge of VB. What would be my best approach? This is clearly insane, but I want to try (please don't ask why I can't use something reasonable -- I just can't). I don't need the full del.icio.us, just links and tags. I'm also okay with having only one person at a time able to add a link to the dB, and everyone sharing a big ball of links.

I've thought about using an Excel file, but I don't know if there's a reasonable way to do that, or what that way would be. Could that work, or should I bite the bullet and go for Access? Is there a feature hidden somewhere (in Outlook?) that I'm overlooking?

Help me batch print text files on the Mac

grumblebee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:19:03 -0800

OS X: I want to batch print all the files in a source-code library. They are actionscript files, which means they are text files that all end in a .as extension. The files are in a complex directory structure (one root folder but files in multiple subfolders), and there are non .as files that I don't want printed. When the files print, I need some kind of separator ( spaces, asterisks, new page...) between each file. I can't seem to find a FILTERABLE batch printing app for OSX -- one that can print all files (of a certain type or naming scheme) in all folders and subfolders starting at a certain root.

I thought about opening Terminal and doing this:

find . -name "*.as" | xargs cat > outfile.txt

And then printing outfile.txt. That would be perfect except that I won't easily be able to tell where one file begins and another ends. I need

*****************

or some other delimiter between files.

If it matters, this is for OS X Leopard.

The Elusive Quick and Dirty iPhone App

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:05:05 -0800

What is the most painless route to developing and selling an iPhone app? I'm interested in building a game similar to the ones made by Storm8. As far as I can tell, those games are just web apps -- HTML, JavaScript, and some server-side scripting. The apps used to access them are just simple skinned browsers with some hooks for device ID authentication. Since almost all of the game is managed server-side, Storm8 can push updates to all players instantly without requiring them to download a software update.

I know HTML, JavaScript, and PHP. I have a killer game idea that seems to fit into that model and I don't see why I couldn't make it happen with my current skill set. So, where do I go from here? How do I painlessly build a client app to connect to my web interface, and get it in the App Store? I don't want to touch Xcode or Objective-C if I can avoid them. I'm willing to outsource development of that part if the price is right (meaning: extremely, ridiculously low).

How can I avoid the nightmare of complicated legal gymnastics I've heard some devs go through? Where can I find the official list of guidelines Apple supposedly follows when deciding to accept or reject apps? I should probably make sure my idea complies before I start coding. What else do I need to know before I enter the strange, intimidating land of iPhone development?

Need ideas for a really cool (and challenging) beginner's program I can write in PHP.

kitcat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:01:40 -0800

Need ideas for a really cool and challenging beginner's program I can write in PHP. For the final assignment of my beginner's programming class (the language is PHP), I get to write a program that will do whatever I like. I'm really dorkishly excited and I want to choose something both cool and kinda tough - something I'll learn a lot from putting together.

The program has to contain decision structures, looping and arrays at the very least. I can involve other scripts / languages or web stuff if I choose, but as it stands right now, I don't know how to run web apps - only a little bit of HTML and CSS. And there won't be any GUI, since we haven't learned any of that in conjunction with PHP. My instructor has suggested a financial calculator or a contact manager. These seem booooring. And a little bit too easy, too. Yes, I'm a beginner, but I think I can handle something more than that.

Please help me come up with some ideas. What was the coolest 'first real program' you wrote?

How to work in software, outdoors?

mjg123 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:11:54 -0800

What kinds of jobs exist for software engineers who want to work outdoors? Rain, wind, sunshine, sleet, yes please!! I have about 10 years experience as a professional software engineer, mostly working for large companies and a bit as a contractor too. I enjoy it, and I always get good reports from clients and colleagues. But the desk/office lifestyle is getting me down, and I'd love to work outdoors.

Without abandoning the skills and salary that I've built up over the years, what kind of job could I get that would see me working outside for a considerable part of my time? I'm thinking of a minimum of one whole day outside every week, preferably more.

I really don't want to give up the software design aspect of my job, these are the problems that I love solving. But I suppose I could do without the actual programming part of it, so technical architect would be a nice job - if I could do it outside. Help me brainstorm this one, mefites!

How best to organize python scripts?

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:36:08 -0800

What is the best way of organizing python scripts? I have a quickly growing number of python scripts that I am using for some work. At the moment I don't have a problem remembering what the twenty or so scripts do, but I'm worried in a few months time that I will have completely forgotten.

I do document my work as much as possible, but when I stare in to a folder of a bunch of files it is a little hard to remember what exactly is going on in each file without opening it and starting to read through.

I don't have much of a formal background in programming so any suggestions about effective ways of organizing these would be appreciated.

I'm using Python 2.5 and Idle on Windows.

Tell me how to make a simple widget to post on my website.

markcmyers — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:38:20 -0800

Tell me how to make a simple widget to post on my website. A home cook will enter how many cups of an ingredient are called for by a recipe and she'll choose from a list the type of ingredient (e.g. bread flour or baker's sugar) and the widget will convert the volume amount to grams so she can use her food scale to weigh out the ingredient. Can you recommend a widget generator for a nonprogrammer?

How to find a small company, in another country, for a 1-year work term?

james.nvc — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:42:05 -0800

I'm currently a third-year Engineering Science student at the University of Toronto, majoring in computer engineering. As part of my program, I'm supposed to do a 12-16 month work term. While there are a variety of large tech companies that recruit directly from this program, I'm interested in working at a smaller, preferably U.S.-based technology firm. How should I go about finding a suitable place? For more background, I'm interested in a wide variety of programming languages, such as Lisp, Scheme, Haskell, OCaml, Python, Ruby, etc. I'm proficient in C and C++, but I prefer to avoid them when I can. I'm hoping to find some sort of web- or software-development firm, still in at a more startup-y phase, that would be interested in hiring a student for a year. Do I have any hope in this endeavor?

Which HTML/CSS/JS IDE do I want?

drjimmy11 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:31:52 -0800

Which HTML/CSS/JS IDE do I want? So I've been doing AS3 development for the last few years, using Flex Builder, but am now moving back into HTML/CSS/JS. I've gotten used to having a fairly intelligent IDE and I'd like to not go back to the bad old days of having to type every single param and property from scratch every time. (I'm looking for code help, not just highlighting.)

I have tried a few but none seems to have everything I want:

1. Dreamweaver:
Pluses: When you link to a stylesheet, you can CTRL+space and get a list of styles to choose from.
Minuses: Weak support for JS. (no auto-complete at all)

2. Aptana:
Pluses: Seems to have excellent JS support, including major AJAX libraries.
Minuses: Unless I am missing something, I can't choose Css styles off a list, and that is a major major timesaver for the work I'll be doing.

3. HTMLPad 2010:
Plusses and minuses seem about the same as Aptana, plus it costs money. (DW CS3 is already installed on my work machine so no cost there.)

So, am i doing something wrong with Aptana? Is there another piece of software I'm not aware of? Or should I settle for DW for html/css and Aptana for JS? (The work will probably be 80% or more on the html/css side.)

thanks!

Utilising the Twitter API

nostrich — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:39:46 -0800

Where to start: extracting images from a Twitter search and presenting them on a webpage? I have almost no programming knowledge, but I have a small project in mind, and have no idea where to start. (And also about a week to do it in, since it's a time-sensitive project.)

Here's what I want to do:
- Get the results of a Twitter search along the lines of "something something twitpic filter:links" (ie, get all the results of a search for "something something" that include a link to a Twitpic image).
- Get a thumbnail of each Twitpic image
- Present these thumbnails on a webpage

Twitter's API can do what I want, as can Twitpic's, I'm just not sure where I should start. Presumably, I need to get the tweets, perform some kind of regex voodoo to extract the Twitpic links, and borrow Twitpic's API to get thumbnails for them.

This sounds like it should be fairly easy, but I'm a guy that doesn't have fluency in any programming language, so I can't even picture what my first step would be. I'm probably approaching this a little backwards, too -- trying to consider how Twitter's API is rate-limited, and it would need some form of caching, etc, etc. (Though I can't program, I do have some basic fundamental knowledge of the concepts and idea involved, like rate-limiting and cacheing, and such.)

So where do you think I should start? Learning the basics of X programming language seems like a sensible step 1, but I don't have much interest in actually learning to program in X, just in learning to do this in X. Whatever X may be.

It doesn't really matter if I can't do this in a week, but if it took much more than a week to do, I'm not sure it would be worth the time.

What do you think?

Why does my VB.NET app thinks it has to startup from the Class Library?

kitcat — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:03:12 -0800

I have my VB.NET app (which includes a Class Library and several Forms) set to startup from the Windows Forms Application. Why am I getting the error message: "A project with an Output Type of Class Library cannot be started directly?" I'm trying to tell it not to start from the Class Library! Please help. I'm a newbie at this, so I'm standing by to offer clarification if my explanation of the problem doesn't make sense. What I have done is:

1. Created a project.
2. Added a Class Library containing a controller class and another class.
3. Created a Windows Forms Application with two forms and corresponding code.
4. Added the Windows Forms Application to the the project that already contains the Class Library.
5. In the Class Library, added a reference to the Windows Forms Application.
6. Set the project to start from one of the Forms.

Maybe it's worth noting that this app is also connected to a database.

I've been at this for hours and am losing my mind. Please help me!

Help me be an IT wizard.

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:36:15 -0800

I will need to change careers, but I have a bit of time to plan this out. What should my next computer- or education-related job be? About me, I’m American, living overseas in Tokyo. I have a wife and baby girl. I’m teaching English at a private high school/jr high, and enjoy the work very much. What I would like to do is move back to the U.S. and teach English at an American jr. high or high school. The catch is I don’t have a teaching certificate, and would need to take classes to get that. In addition, states are slashing budgets left and right, and even experienced teachers are being laid off and having a hard time finding work. If you have any advice in this area, please let me know.

So…the other arena I’d like to see about gaining skills/experience is computers and programming. If you ask me “what job?”, well, that’s kind of my question for you. What kinds of IT jobs are out there? What can I do all by myself with my iMac at home to gain skills and even make money (I’m thinking Web-based work, perhaps). I don’t know programming languages, but I’m fairly autodidactic given half a chance, and think I could teach myself; again, I have at least a year, probably more like 3 or 4 years before I make the switch. I am fairly computer savvy, though when it comes to typing code I guess I hit a wall.

My second question, then: what are some wise ways to spend the next couple of years teaching myself IT / Web / Programming skills? How to build up a portfolio of sorts during that time as well?

A Program to Help Me?

moonroof — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:13:00 -0800

I started a new internship, and I'm wondering if there is some way to automate copying the non-profit information from this website. So, I'm the new intern, and I've been charged with the task of copying the information from this website and copying the information from each member into an Excel spreadsheet. I need the name of the organization, contact name, their title, phone number, email, and the website address.

It's a little slow-going, and I'm happy to do it by hand, but I wonder if there isn't some way to automate the process, like with a program? My supervisor would be thrilled, but I don't know anything about programming. Before I post a request on a site like rentacoder, I need to know, is this even possible?