David Beazley

Free-range computer scientist living in Evanston, Illinois. Former academic. I teach computer science courses, but you'll probably find me yapping on about bikes, dogs, and other random stuff here. I wrote the Python Cookbook, 3rd Ed (O'Reilly) and Python Distilled (Addison-Wesley). Teaching CSCI 1730, Design and Implementation of Programming Languages at Brown.edu in Fall 2023 and 2024!

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dabeaz_at_mastodon.social@mostr.pub

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Last Notes

2024-08-09 17:07:03

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@npub19ns…u6jk Not sure. Certainly to mess with it.

2024-08-09 14:24:58

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@npub19ns…u6jk FWIW, I've been pondering a strategy such as this for a nearby license-plate reader.

2024-07-30 10:35:21

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@npub1gv8…28kw There should be a little beep in the audio to let you know when it's time to change the image yourself.

2024-07-17 15:43:38

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@npub1ch0…7gec Why stop there? "__init__ all the things!!!"

2024-07-11 01:57:06

SICP is just such an amazing book. I love teaching it every time. Getting ready for day 4 tomorrow.,

2024-06-23 14:03:05

I suppose I ought to sit down and learn a little Rust before tomorrow's Rust "class" starts. The one I'm leading...

2024-06-09 11:01:17

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At some point, I should probably write something up about all of this Raft nonsense. Maybe after I've tried to implement it 50 times. That's a good round number.

2024-06-08 19:10:21

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Unlike a college course project, I don't give people tests. Instead, it's just "here's the paper." Figuring out how in the hell to test it and convincing others that it works is part of the project. And it would be a mistake to assume that I completely know what I doing with respect to testing either. Of course, both of these things are part of the overall challenge (evil grin ;-).

2024-06-08 19:05:44

Still super geeked out about unintentionally writing a test that unearthed a previously unknown bug in my Raft implementation from last week's course. I went back through all of my GitHub repos and I have made a similar (or other) mistake in this one line of code at least 23 times in a row (probably more). I've very likely made it in *every* implementation up to now.
Attention to small details, indeed.
And fuzzing for the win.

2024-06-05 17:08:08

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@npub1ch0…7gec Could it also include a cute dog looking at the board?

2024-04-10 10:58:29

Years ago, I gave a talk about being locked in a vault and having to analyze a bunch of C++ code in a legal case. I used some Python.
One thing I didn't mention in that talk is that I also looked at a lot of "prior art" which mostly consisted of 1970s assembly code. That code, in contrast, was readable and understandable. It had flow charts. It was a small stack of paper when printed.
Anyways, rock on Voyager!

2024-03-30 13:43:55

A novel idea for a future science fiction show and hear me out here.... A two hour arc.

2024-03-29 11:50:52

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@npub106w…cln7 The latter. The only thing missing from that movie were little hands gripping the top of those sand thumping things...

2024-03-29 11:23:00

Whereas seeing Star Wars as a kid inspired me to see more sci-fi movies, I think I'll be fine if I never see another sci-fi film again after watching Dune 2. Coupled with the trailers for upcoming attractions at the start, maybe it'd be fine to never watch another movie again actually.

2024-02-14 23:40:32

Does anyone actually write graphics libraries anymore? I mean, for fun or just for learning?

2023-10-26 03:23:13

About 20 years ago, I got to thinking about how much I missed playing music in the band (because adulthood sucks in that way). This started a whole journey of learning jazz piano as an adult and ultimately performing a set at Chicago's Jazz Showcase with a class I'd been taking.
Flash forward to this evening and I find myself watching my high school kid play on the stage of the Jazz Showcase with his high school jazz ensemble--bringing some kind of closure to a crazy 20 year adventure. Freaky.

2023-08-14 14:23:45

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@npub1v3v…4paw It was great having you in the course!

2023-08-13 10:38:25

Don't know who needs to hear this, but Python devs hating on other programming languages in casual conversation really isn't the flex you think it is.

2023-08-06 17:48:43

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@npub12gz…8gm7 Think you're right. Still a good quote though ;-)

2023-08-06 17:21:29

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@npub1tkl…pt2p Kay makes reference to Hoare so that was first. Assuming it's not a variation on a Mark Twain quip or Shakespeare I suppose.

2023-08-06 14:12:28

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@npub1nkv…muy8 Well, how else would you make it run fast?

2023-08-06 13:25:25

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@npub1wfj…2ewz Oh yeah. Don't even get me started on THAT!

2023-08-06 12:28:36

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@npub1njc…5weh @npub1wfj…2ewz The expectation stuff makes me feel really bad. I'm sorry I took 3 months to get around to your PR! No, genuinely sorry. But other stuff was going on.

2023-08-06 11:30:06

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This, as opposed to the usual quasi-religious trinity of encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.
Kay has a few choice things to say about technical religions as well. For example, noting the manner "in which a way of doing things finally gets canonized into an inflexible belief structure."
In any event, the whole assignment thing is interesting. I'll have to spend more time thinking about that.

2023-08-06 11:24:03

Meanwhile, I finally made it through the "The Early History of Smalltalk" (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/155360.155364).
I must say, Alan Kay is a master of throwing shade. For example, this quote: "Smalltalk-76 was a great improvement on its successors!" 🤔
Also, some neat connections to liberal arts.
I think the most interesting part is the motivation of OO being a way to control/eliminate assignment operations. I'm not sure I've ever seen OO described quite like that before.

2023-08-06 11:17:23

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@npub1jvq…7amh I'm more than happy to give you a free puppy because puppies are cool and all. However, I'm not it's veterinarian.

2023-08-06 11:09:58

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@npub1wfj…2ewz Yep. But, it's still ok for people to mostly be interested in the code if that's what floats your boat. I'm not anti-community. It's just not my muse.

2023-08-06 09:38:48

I think I'm just bad at open source projects. Oh, the coding part is fine. It's everything else--administration, community, coordination, promotion, the shouting, and all of that. I suck at that and it brings little joy.
By analogy, just because I can play my horn doesn't mean I'd want to lead a marching band. I would not.

2023-08-05 19:52:48

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@npub1305…k70l Wait. Didn't you just hire me? 🤔

2023-08-04 23:16:28

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@npub19vv…me9q Nothing to elaborate really. Just a similar feeling. It feels wrong. A disturbance in the force. Almost as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

2023-08-04 11:46:36

So you know that time where I had to take my kid to the ER after they cut their finger with a steak knife that broke off as it was being used as a screwdriver? That's where my mind usually wanders when discussion shifts to the Python operator module.

2023-08-01 19:41:20

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@npub1a4q…gva5 Nope. There was an attempt to write one for HOPL III. That effort is largely reflected in Guido's writing of the "History of Python" blog at http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/01/introduction-and-overview.html.
I was contacted for leading a possible HOPL IV effort, but upon realizing that doing that would be more effort than writing my dissertation, combined with an already bad case of book burnout, and COVID, it was abandoned.

2023-08-01 19:11:35

A moment of disappointment reflecting upon the fact that I was never able to pull that "History of Python" paper together for HOPL. C'est la vie I guess.

2023-07-23 11:19:37

PEP bros gonna PEP.

2023-07-21 11:29:04

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@npub1y0k…se2a @npub1305…k70l Does this sort of thing happen often?

2023-07-20 13:21:21

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@npub1305…k70l Category theory?