iDenTickle updated, again!

I did it again.
I added more stuff to iDenTickle, again.

This time, I added the option of updating your gNewBook microblog.

I also added a handy little “clear” button.

Also, the setup and about “windows” are now just frames that appear in the main interface, rather than distinct windows.

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posted with Xpostulate

iden.tcl v. 1.0 released

Moments ago, I released a new version of IdenTickle, the tcl/tk identi.ca and twitter status update tool..

Now it saves your login information, so you don’t have to enter it every time.
Additionally, I built installers for Windows and Linux.
(Mac and BSD folks, etc., will still have to install from source…sorry).

dent, tweet, xpost – all in one

Tweeting and Denting are now incorporated within the eXpostulate interface, so you can really annoy all your online friends, by x-xposting to 4 distinct blogging services, & denting and tweeting to announce your new articles!

At this moment, the denting/tweeting is still using curl, however, which is only native to * nix systems (should work on lin/bsd/mac without further configuration, but win users will have to install curl, which can be done, of course).

I will be attempting to work out tweeting/denting with tcl’s own http post method. I’ve tried a few times, but unsuccessfully, so far. Need to log on to #tcl at freenode and get some help, or something.
Additionally, I have also added some additional html tag insertion tools and insertion of dreamwidth specific user and cut tags.

./tony

Python v. Tcl/Tk: Denting & Tweeting

So.  I have now made two little denter/tweeter programs (to send updates to twitter.com and identi.ca), one with Tcl/Tk, the other with Python. I figured a little comparison, perhaps, was in order.

If you look at them, of course, they look, well, just about the same.  Tkinter is, after all, analogous to Tk.

The Tcl/Tk program made it incredibly simple to display the response from the remote server, which I haven’t succeeded in doing with the python script, yet.  Both rely on calling an external program (curl) to send updates, rather than relying on the languages’ built-in tools.  I could probably work out HTTP POST in tcl rather painlessly.  I did try to use python’s urllib to post, unfruitfully, and resorted back to calling curl.

the links: iDenTickles (tcl/tk) / iDenTweetyPie (python)

the code for both programs is available at the above wiki links

The Tcl/Tk program, which has the added feature of displaying the server response, has only 47 lines of code, 245 words, 1844 characters.  It took me less than an hour to write it.

The Python program, however, which does precisely the same exact thing as the tcl/tk program, without displaying the server response, has 104 lines of code, 564 words, and 4073 characters.  It took me the better part of a day to write it.  Oh, but the python program tells you if your update is too long.

One must ask oneself, of course, is this a testament to the power and simplicity of tcl/tk?  Or, is it simply an indication of my lack of skill with python?

I can’t answer that defnitively, but, to me, it really looks like tcl/tk is a bit more efficient.  Admittedly, I’m not a very skilled programmer at all, in truth.  Timewise, of course, I have been writing tcl/tk for a couple of years, and only just now delving into python. As such, I was able to throw the tcl/tk program together quickly, while, my efforts to “translate” my tcl/tk program into python required a bit of research on the syntax for writing tkinter guis, and other elements.  It just really looks to me as though Python/Tkinter takes a lot more code to do the same thing.  I really have drawn that conclusion.  Especially building a gui, it seems, is more cumbersome with tkinter than with simple, good old tcl/tk.  I know there are other means of building a gui with python (wxwidgets, pygtk, pyqt, etc.), but I wanted to try the one most similar to that with which I am already familiar, and, I believe it is a fairer comparison when using a similar gui ToolKit.

At this juncture, I do have to say, I feel a great loyalty and deep affinity for tcl/tk.  I don’t understand why it isn’t in wider use, frankly.  It is an incredibly powerful language, used for a vast array of purposes, and, in my opinion, is probably the easiest programming language to learn (of course, I haven’t tried them all), especially for a beginning programmer.  One can be up and running, creating useful programs in a relatively short time.  I also feel the need to give kudoz to the tcl/tk community and the tcl.tk wiki, which is replete tons of example code, detailed explanations, and great resources for learning how to program in tcl/tk.  The tcl-ers that hang out at #tcl on irc.freenode.net, additinoally, are extremely helpful, and patient.  They won’t hold your hand, but they’ll tolerate a newbie, and point them in the right direction, without any snobbishness or derision.

I can’t say the same for my experiences with pythonistas.  Their irc channel was a little less friendly, imho.  Maybe I just caught them on a bad day, or maybe I was having a bad day.  After all, Pythonistas are known for having a sense of humor.  Admittedly, I was frustrated when I finally went to their channel for a bit of support, and frustrated, whiny n00b is no fun to play with, any way.  Moreover, the python community does have a lot of documentation available online. Nonetheless, to me, it seems that it is written for other programmers, not for the uninitiated, so, is not so easily read as much of the tcl/tk resources.  Their sample code is not well explained, where someone new to programming can really make sense of it. This may also be a function of time, since tcl/tk has been around a bit longer than python.

I do want to make it very clear: I’m really not here to pick on python.  I know that it’s a powerful language with a great many uses, and a favorite of a great many real hackers who know a lot more about programming than I do.  I will continue to learn to write it, and believe it will serve me quite well for various purposes, and I believe I will continue to have fun learning it.  But, I think I might continue to point out how tcl/tk is much easier and seemingly efficient, too…

Python v. Tcl/Tk (denting & tweeting)

So.  I have now made two little denter/tweeter programs (to send updates to twitter.com and identi.ca), one with Tcl/Tk, the other with Python. I figured a little comparison, perhaps, was in order.

If you look at them, of course, they look, well, just about the same.  Tkinter is, after all, analogous to Tk.

The Tcl/Tk program made it incredibly simple to display the response from the remote server, which I haven’t succeeded in doing with the python script, yet.  Both rely on calling an external program (curl) to send updates, rather than relying on the languages’ built-in tools.  I could probably work out HTTP POST in tcl rather painlessly.  I did try to use python’s urllib to post, unfruitfully, and resorted back to calling curl.

the links: iDenTickles (tcl/tk) / iDenTweetyPie (python)

the code for both programs is available at the above wiki links

The Tcl/Tk program, which has the added feature of displaying the server response, has only 47 lines of code, 245 words, 1844 characters.  It took me less than an hour to write it.

The Python program, however, which does precisely the same exact thing as the tcl/tk program, without displaying the server response, has 104 lines of code, 564 words, and 4073 characters.  It took me the better part of a day to write it. Oh, but the python program does tell you if your post is too long, something I neglect to program into the tcl/tk script. That’s a bonus.

One must ask oneself, of course, is this a testament to the power and simplicity of tcl/tk?  Or, is it simply an indication of my lack of skill with python?

I can’t answer that defnitively, but, to me, it really looks like tcl/tk is a bit more efficient.  Admittedly, I’m not a very skilled programmer at all, in truth.  Timewise, of course, I have been writing tcl/tk for a couple of years, and only just now delving into python. As such, I was able to throw the tcl/tk program together quickly, while, my efforts to “translate” my tcl/tk program into python required a bit of research on the syntax for writing tkinter guis, and other elements.  It just really looks to me as though Python/Tkinter takes a lot more code to do the same thing.  I really have drawn that conclusion.  Especially building a gui, it seems, is more cumbersome with tkinter than with simple, good old tcl/tk.  I know there are other means of building a gui with python (wxwidgets, pygtk, pyqt, etc.), but I wanted to try the one most similar to that with which I am already familiar, and, I believe it is a fairer comparison when using a similar gui ToolKit.

At this juncture, I do have to say, I feel a great loyalty and deep affinity for tcl/tk.  I don’t understand why it isn’t in wider use, frankly.  It is an incredibly powerful language, used for a vast array of purposes, and, in my opinion, is probably the easiest programming language to learn (of course, I haven’t tried them all), especially for a beginning programmer.  One can be up and running, creating useful programs in a relatively short time.  I also feel the need to give kudoz to the tcl/tk community and the tcl.tk wiki, which is replete tons of example code, detailed explanations, and great resources for learning how to program in tcl/tk.  The tcl-ers that hang out at #tcl on irc.freenode.net, additinoally, are extremely helpful, and patient.  They won’t hold your hand, but they’ll tolerate a newbie, and point them in the right direction, without any snobbishness or derision.

I can’t say the same for my experiences with pythonistas.  Their irc channel was a little less friendly, imho.  Maybe I just caught them on a bad day, or maybe I was having a bad day.  After all, Pythonistas are known for having a sense of humor.  Admittedly, I was frustrated when I finally went to their channel for a bit of support, and frustrated, whiny n00b is no fun to play with, any way.  Moreover, the python community does have a lot of documentation available online. Nonetheless, to me, it seems that it is written for other programmers, not for the uninitiated, so, is not so easily read as much of the tcl/tk resources.  Their sample code is not well explained, where someone new to programming can really make sense of it. This may also be a function of time, since tcl/tk has been around a bit longer than python.

I do want to make it very clear: I’m really not here to pick on python.  I know that it’s a powerful language with a great many uses, and a favorite of a great many real hackers who know a lot more about programming than I do.  I will continue to learn to write it, and believe it will serve me quite well for various purposes, and I believe I will continue to have fun learning it.  But, I think I might continue to point out how tcl/tk is much easier and seemingly efficient, too…

iDenTweetyPie

iDenTweetyPie: python/tkinter tweeter/denter

I hacked up a little more python/tkinter silliness.

iDenTweetyPie sends a dent/tweet(update) to twitter or identi.ca.

That’s all, really.

I have no plans to make a full-blown client for either site, just a quick-n-dirty updating tool. I would like, however, to figure out the pubsubhub thingy to send buzzes to google/buzz.

That would take some additionaly work, since, at the moment, iDenTweetyPie tells you that you talk too much and refuses to proceed if your update is longer than 160 characters, which, of course, isn’t necessary for buzz, since buzz tolerates longer updates.

I might work on that.  I don’t know.  This was just a little exercise, really.

I had already written a similar little program in tcl/tk, iDenTickle, which initially only did dents, but I have updated that one to send tweets, too.

my dents :  my tweets

./tony

identickles and other strange beasts …

Just a brief note…
I started to hack up a little ticklish client for identi.ca, the microblogging site.
It’s here: IdenTickles, on the baldwinsoftware wiki.
There’s not much to it, really…just a little tcl/tk gui to enter a “dent”, which calls curl to send it to identi.ca.

here’s a screenshot
Wouldn’t be exciting at
all, if it weren’t for the fact that I had Salma Hayek on my desktop wallpaper that day…

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In other news: I keep hacking at the baldwnsoftware.com site. I changed the css colors, most significantly, today, but I’ve also decided to eschew use of the nabble news and forum elements I was using before, as well as the nanoblog I had built, opting rather to use this wordpress blog to post news of new releases and developments, and to make use of the wikidot wiki for any forums or other discussion.
In all truth, not a soul has participated in the nabble news or forums, other than little old me, anyway, so I’m not expecting much of a party here, either.
I figure maintaining the wiki is useful, and to that end, I’d like to move the baldwinsoftware wiki from wikidot to here on this server as well.

I’ve tried to install mediawiki, but am experiencing difficulties at the moment…

./tony